The Cleaning Task You Should Avoid During A Heatwave

When temperatures are soaring, cleaning your house probably isn't the first task that you're looking forward to tackling. After considering tips to keep your home protected in extreme heat, you do have a perfectly valid excuse to skip one chore — vacuuming — until the weather cools down.

You've surely felt the hot air coming from your vacuum while using the machine. That's a normal phenomenon, and on a cool day, it's no big deal. Vacuum cleaners create heat as a byproduct of electricity, and the heat then blows out to keep their motor within safe temperatures and preserve the machine's life. 

However, the conditions of a heatwave can cause a temperature feedback loop that makes vacuuming even more sweat inducing. That's because, like most machines, vacuums are less efficient in high heat, which causes their motors to work even harder. In turn, these circumstances increase the amount of internal friction needed for their parts to operate, which further cranks up the heat output. Unfortunately, tropical days make for hotter vacuums, which can make for downright sweltering homes.

Even during a heatwave, floors still get dirty. In an ideal world, you'd be able to stick to sweeping or dry mopping hard floors, but there's no way around vacuuming to keep a rug pristine. If you can't wait until temperatures drop to turn your vacuum on, there are still ways that you can mitigate some heat.

What kind of flooring you're vacuuming matters. Vacuums struggle more on surfaces that hold heat such as carpet, so sticking to smoother surfaces when possible will help the heat situation. Naturally, the longer you run the vacuum matters, too – the fancy term would be the "duty cycle" — and affects how much heat the motor will generate. Using your vacuum in short sprints rather than a longer marathon can help, and you can also schedule cleaning sessions at the beginning or end of the day when outdoor temperatures are lower.

Another factor to consider: Cleaning and emptying a vacuum is another way to reduce overheating. Those clogged filters and full bags are slowly killing your vacuum cleaner for several reasons including increased heat, and even more frustrating than a vacuum that doesn't work well is one that also makes you perspire. For maximum efficiency and air filtration, change your vacuum bags when they're around two-thirds full. 

Summer months can be miserable enough already, so don't find yourself sweating more than necessary due to a broken or inefficient vacuum.