Big success with toy vacuum cleaner

[lingle]

I bought Ds2 (4.8) a miniature "Henry" vacuum cleaner. It is similar to the ones our cleaners use and to the one he sees in school. It is battery operated and makes a noise, albeit much quieter than a real one.

It has been an enormous success. He usually leaves the house when the cleaners arrive. Today, he stood in the hallway greeting them saying "Cleaners, look, I got vacuum cleaner, he's called Henry, I have to clean the carpets". Then every time they switched their vacuum on, he switched his on too (in another room). At the end, he touched their vacuum cleaner, having established it was not plugged in.

I am hoping this will speed up his ability to cope with vacuum cleaners.

The cleaners were lovely, one of them turns out to have a daughter with oversensitive hearing, and she has offered to bring me a toy hairdryer next week. But I think I'll buy my own as it has gone so well.

will post separately about hand-driers.

Perhaps if I'd bought him one when he was 2, he'd never have got scared of them. He isn't scared of hedgecutters or drills (but they don't move towards him).

On a related note, does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can create a toy hand-drier? Hand driers are still enemy number one.

Maybe I should write to James Dyson about his hideous new extra-loud hand-drier. The ear-buster, or whatever it's called.

Yay for vacuum success!

WRT the hand-drier, do you have a rough spec in mind? e.g. one that only goes off when you press a button or (my personal pet-peeve) the ones that are sensor-activated. DH is a heating engineer and generally quite adept at err all things technical so I'm sure he could make a few suggestions.

Thats great.

Dd1 still hates the hoover (she's 6), she will now stay in the same room/toilets as the hand dryer but will not use one (dries her hands on me), she will also stay in the room now when i use the food mixer.

good question not. DS2 will definitely notice all the different makes and models (he always notices how many buttons there are on the underside of toilet seats though thankfully this doesn't fascinate him as it used to). I suppose the sensor-activated ones are the most frightening (apart from the dreadful new dyson monstrosities) so that would be the ideal.

I would be extremely grateful for any ideas your husband has. I suppose a hairdryer motor placed in a box in some way would work..... but one with a buttom may be more achievable.

I hate the sensor hand dryers (they frighten me when i walk past and set one off). Dd1 also hates fan heaters (we use one in the winter but have to turn it off when she wants to walk past it).

Ooh Marne, maybe you could show her the mini-Henry in the shops if you think she's ready?

Ds2 loves being in control of it, taking it apart, putting it back together, playing with it, etc.

Can't blame mini marne for not using hand-driers. I think it should be a SN campaign!

Nicholson Baker writes at length about how rubbish hand-driers are in "The Mezzanine", btw.

I would be fully prepared to contact a hand-drier manufacturer and ask them to make a toy one.

I might have to buy one (i love the pink one they do).

A toy hand dryer would be a great idea.

If DH was making it he would

Have an inline extractor fan here in a wooden box, mounted (via screws) on a wooden block to keep it in position towards the top of the block. Wooden box would need 2 holes in it for the ducting to go through (ducting is including in the link shown but is aka tumble drier hose if bought seperately). It would need 2 grills (2 supplied in this model but you would only use of these) and then he would also get this cowl type to go at the front so would look more like a hand dryer cowl.

Would need a fan isolator (normal liqht switch fine apparently), 1.5mm 3 core flex (as long as you wish as that is for plugging in purposes, 1.5mm 4 core flex x 1m, a nylon connector and a 3 point plug.

His version wouldn't blow out hot air, the timer means you would plug it in, switch it on then when you switch it off again it would run for 3-60 mins depending on how you set it. The wiring to the switch would be inside and he would have the lid so it would be screwed on (and therefore had to be unscrewed to get at the inside of it).

The rough cost of materials he reckons would be around £40 - £50. It is possible to make a sensor one but the sensor alone would cost £50 minimum.

Wiring-wise, he said would take roughly 1 hour as you have to create an extra live via the connector (I have instructions and a diagram if you want to know more about how he would do it (!)). He also recommends that if you do decide to make one to get the parts from a wholesaler rather than B&Q etc as they are cheaper and will cut you say the cable to your requirements and generally more helpful.

that is very kind of him notfromaroundhere, please pass on my thanks.

I will try writing to a hand-dryer manufacturer first of all to see if they could supply a non-working one (or ideally a quiet one). Failing that, I will start looking around for engineering type people (sadly, I am not one).

No problem at all. My instructions probably weren't that great as he mostly drew diagrams which I struggled to follow.

Hope you find a helpful manufacturer.