Air filtration for new shop

[Jason Victory]

Hey guys; I’m new here so I hope I’m posting in the right place! I’ve been running (solo) a small furniture business in my personal shop for the past couple years and it has been successful enough to turn it into a part time job and I am blessed enough to be able to financially afford to build a bigger shop. The shop will be 20x26 so roughly 500sq/ft.

My question pertains to an air filtration system. Should I be looking at getting a single unit that performs at 1000-1200 CFM or would it be better two get two units at 500-600 CFM and hang them one opposite sides of the shop. I’m just wondering if the two will collect more working together in two separate locations.

Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

[Chris Parks]

The trick is too prevent dust getting into the air so the need for filtration is minimised. You will never eliminate it but you can sure get the levels way down using a good dust extraction system and well designed hoods and pick ups on the machines. This requires a serious investment but if it is your job then it will pay off. If you don't take the necessary steps as you set up it is unlikely you will ever do it.

[Darin German]

I have one small filtration unit in my 2 car garage and will probably add a second. I spray my finishes and the filtration units help pull the particles out of the air. I use mostly waterborne finishes though. My small unit is very effective on it's own but adding a second isn't that expensive. I don't have room for a large DC so I have to move my small one from machine to machine.

[Randy Heinemann]

I have taken a multi-faceted approach to dust -

1. A cyclone dust collector for at-source collection on my larger machines - planer, jointer, bandsaw, table saw, router table, and lathe.
2. A HEPA vac for collection from smaller, portable tools - sanders, handheld routers, Festool Domino, and drill press.
3. A ceiling hung air cleaner to remove as much floating dust as possible - the dust that isn't kept out of the air by either the cyclone or the HEPA vac.
4. A powered mask that is worn most of the time while using any of the above machines, small or large.

Between all of those, I get very little dust settling on the floor or shelves. I think that means that, for the most part, I'm successful in keeping dust out of the air and my lungs.

I have always felt that anything less that this 4-component approach, is a risk to my lungs. I wish I'd have understood this back when I started woodworking in the 70's. I have still been fortunate that my lungs are healthy and I want to keep it that way.

[John K Jordan]

I have taken a multi-faceted approach to dust -
1. A cyclone dust ...

Jason,

I work much like Randy: a good cyclone first. I installed a 5hp ClearVue cyclone in my new shop.
When making dust I wear a 3M industrial respirator with P100 filters.

I think an air cleaner/filter is good for cleaning up fine dust that manages to float around the room. It has a timer so it can run for a while while your are out of the shop. (I have a Jet that hangs from the ceiling)

One nice investment is an air quality monitor. I have the Dylos: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004AWEG0Y Instead of guessing, this will let you know if there is harmful superfine dust floating around the shop. This is recommended by Bill Pentz.

You might read the Pentz site for a little light (ha!) reading on the subject. http://billpentz.com/woodworking/cyclone/ Bill has been instrumental in educating many people on the dangers of dust and how to deal with it. Even 20 years ago very few people with personal shops (and even some commercial shops) seemed concerned about the health aspects of breathing dust. This seems to be changing -- just yesterday I ran into a guy from my church who was shopping for a cyclone for his little garage shop.

Two gentlemen from our woodturning club were forced to give up working with wood because of serious health issues from fine wood dust.

JKJ

[glenn bradley]

I am in a 20 x 30 foot area and find one unit located along the long wall (as most reading recommends) does the job. I have good collection at the source and still find the ambient collector beneficial. As my source collection has gotten better, I clean/change the filters less ofen but, it is still capturing enough to make it worth while. I imagine a few folks would be surprised what gets collected if they ran an ambient cleaner while they were working for an hour or so ;-)

[Jason Victory]

Ok thanks guys! So it sounds like I really need to invest some $ in a good DC system. Unfortunately I am on a budget like most of us I’m sure; should I sacrifice some of my other tools in terms of quality and invest in a good DC?

Another thing I forgot to mention is my kids are frequent visitors of the shop during the day given my wife is a stay at home mom. So air quality is very imprortant.

[Chris Parks]

Ask what value do you put on your health? The real problem is a lot of advise is given with no real foundation in fact except to say that "my system works for me". There are no facts to back up that statement and at the end of the day every installation is unique. My advise is to buy a cyclone, Clearvue and Bill Pentz give actual numbers on its performance, others may but I have never seen them so I can't comment. Exhaust that cyclone to the atmosphere if possible avoiding filters and use what money you have left to equip the workshop adding more as you get more money. I say use a cyclone because it usually has good expansion possibilities as you add more machines and it sounds like that is your intention. BTW Clearvue state that their cyclones will separate to over 99% with very fine sub micron dust being the only stuff left. Exhausted to atmosphere that can't be seen or detected but make sure that the exhaust is away form doors and windows as much as possible to avoid the dust being dragged back into the building.

[Jason Victory]

I’ve never thought about exhausting it to the outside. Is there a benefit of doing that vs running it into a normal bag setup?

[Chris Parks]

Exhausting it outside is dependent on climate, sucking air out of the building obviously impacts any heating or cooling due to the air change that happens. if it is feasible exhausting to atmosphere is the best thing, there are no filters to clean and it improves air flow. Bags are a waste of time, they all leak and the dust they leak is the most harmful to you as it is the small end of the particle scale, that gets ingested into the lungs and never leaves the body. You can't exhaust a bag/filter style extractor to the atmosphere as the exhaust stream carries all the debris it picked up so it has to be a cyclone as it is the separator and holds the dust.

[Jason Victory]

Ok what would you suggest to use in order to keep animals such as birds out of the exhaust that also wouldn’t hinder airflow?

[Chris Parks]

A couple of hundred installations in Australia don't report nesting birds or other wild life in the exhaust so I think the problem is non existent and if any did take up residence they wouldn't stay long when the cyclone started. Most extractors are muffled anyway whether they are inside exhaust or outside exhaust so that would be an impediment to wild life as well.

[Randy Heinemann]

I don't know if it's a good idea to sacrifice quality on other tools but it sure is the best idea to do what you can to remove dust from the air. As another said the dust collection solution isn't the same across the board for everyone. Do as much research online as you need to make a decision. There is a lot of info out there; some contradictory and some consistent. HEPA filters on dust collectors and vacs is superior to other filtering methods. 2-stage dust collectors (like cyclones) are generally better than single stage. Air cleaners don't come with HEPA filters and are therefore really best as an end filter which repetitvely attempts to pull the remaining dust from the air. In the end it's always best to use some sort of dust mask to make sure you are getting the least dust in your lungs possible (a good quality mask).

[glenn bradley]

First a disclaimer; I think item "1" on anyone's "starting a new shop" list should be dust collection. My reasons are personal and will follow me the rest of my life; enough said.

should I sacrifice some of my other tools in terms of quality and invest in a good DC?

I don't know that I would follow this path. Since we are talking about dust collection I will spare you the discussion of the wonders of hand tools and all they can do and weight this in the direction of a tailed, or at least a hybrid shop. I would wait on the purchase of one large machine or another rather than purchase everything on my list at a lower quality point.

A small bandsaw can get you by and still have value when you purchase a larger one if you get into resawing. A planer sled and your router table or tablesaw can take the place of a jointer until you are ready for one. A router combo kit can cover all your routing needs until you need a dedicated table router and a half a dozen others, if ever. A drill motor can do a lot of what I use a drill press for, just not as easily or conveniently but, it will save you buying a poor DP only to have to replace it later if you wait and save your pennies.

If you are going to have a tablesaw anchored shop (I do) then I would focus my primary purchase on the tablesaw and a DC. If you are going straight into making your own boards and blanks then I might start with a high-end bandsaw and planer and dust collection. The lack of a tablesaw will require some hand tool skills. Come to think of it my current jointer plane cost more than my first tablesaw and bandsaw combined (bought used) so this could be in error ;-)

As usual, consider a piece that you would like to make, look at what it takes to make it (and clean the air while doing so) and that will sharpen your focus on what machines you need right away. Look for alternatives to the easy, machined way of doing some tasks in an effort to defer that expense so that you can buy better quality of what you do buy first. JMHO.

A 2 micron filter in action:

2m doesn't cut it.JPG

[Chris Parks]

Following up to what I said above, all bags leak and 99% of single stage bag/filter style extractors leak somewhere in the machine. If anyone is forced to use one it should be placed outside the work area in another enclosure and the air then exhausted to atmosphere or returned through filters to the work area so the leaked dust is not released into the work area environment. Vacuum cleaners are in the same category, all but a few leak dust, in fact they chew the dust up into smaller particles and then leak that back into the air which creates a huge problem as the particles are then very small and float in the atmosphere even better so you can breathe them in more easily.