Wood Dust OSHA standard

[Mark Wedel]

I have that same, or very similar meter in my garage workshop.
I mostly care about delta from baseline. Normally, the PM 2.5 reading will be <5. If I see it rise significantly above that, I know I have a bunch of dust floating in the air and should really be wearing a respirator. Unless you live in a clean room, there is always going to be some stuff floating in the air - I just care about how much worse the woodworking is making it.
Granted, some folks might live in places that just have a really high baseline (if mild wildfire smoke blows in, 50+ on PM 2.5 would be seen.) 5 years ago when there were major wildfires and smoke blew this directions, 400+ on PM2.5 was seen, but in that case, the smoke was visibly bad - just looking across the street, one could see the haze from the smoke. Needless to say on those days, I just didn't go outside or do work in the shop (while I respirator would help the lungs, that much particulate irritates the eyes)

[Chris Parks]

Well he could wear a disposable dust mask and then maybe he wouldn't have COPD until he was 100, and you could extrapolate that to a hobbyist with a disposable dust mask making to 1000.

There is a lot of unfounded fear about dust. especially within the hobbyist community. Millions of people all around the world work in dusty environment's, if half of what you hear about the evils of dust were true, people wouldn't last a month in their workshops, their lungs would clog up and they would die! Chill out.

Wear a disposable dust mask, ear plugs, and safety glasses, if you have a dust collector hooked up to your jointer and thicknessplaner your golden!

Mark, keep up the good work and don't let anyone tell you any differently.

[Larry Frank]

I monitor all the data and enter in a spreadsheet. But, I am mostly interested in the smaller particles. Occasionally, I will do a test using a tool with and without the dust collector on and notice that running my dust collector makes a significant difference in the smaller particles PM 2.5 and smaller. Does my dust collector get everything...absolutely not but it does reduce the dust. I am running a 5 hp cyclone which moves a lot of air. I also have a Jet air filter which does a good job with smaller dust.

Why do I do all of this? Is it because the dust could kill me? Not at all ! It helps me with breathing and sinus issues. It makes me feel better physically.

[Mark Wedel]

Not directly comparable, but I did read an article recently about how counter fabricators in Southern California are getting silicosis, and that some, even in the 20s, are at the point of needing oxygen tanks. But these are people working inside shops with poor dust control and thus inhaling dust (and probably a lot of it) for 40 hours/week. I suspect most home workshops are not going to come close to that level of dustiness.
However (what is related) is that not everyone in those shops is getting silicosis - there are different factors - some are probably genetic. Maybe some are working by the air vents so are getting fresher air - who knows. Main point being that you can't really make blanket statements that you should (or should not) worry about dust - I'd rather protect myself as it is rather easy to do, but for many years I really didn't do good job, and blowing my nose at the end of the day showed it.

[Chris Parks]

Stone counter tops are just about to be banned and withdrawn from sale in Oz due to Silicosis, as much as I am in favour of dust control I don't see a problem if proper measures are taken but unfortunately that is not the case and workers ignore guidelines at their own peril as they have unfortunately found out and most probably a shortened life span and a lot of suffering. I bet the clever people try to fabricate offshore and import it so someone else can deal with the problem.

[Edward Weber]

Thanks for your posts/info Larry, I think I'll ask Santa for one of these monitors

[Larry Frank]

They make one now that looks similar but allows downloading data. I would like to have that one to see how dust levels vary with time.

[Thomas Crawford]

The AirKnight brand looks pretty good. Company is based in Chicago. Battery powered which seems convenient to move around the shop.