Getting rid of dust and fumes

[NIC]

I work in a garage and when I sand I have a lot of dust in the air. What is the best way to get rid of that in the air? Can I buy those exhaust fan (the ones that have two fans) and mount that on a window? Would an air filter system work better? I am on a pretty limited budget. 

[drzaius]

For a limited budget, you can't beat a fan that just blows it all out the window. This assumes that it isn't too cold outside to do that. You should also were a good respirator, even with the fans. They are not expensive.

[NIC]

3 minutes ago, drzaius said:

For a limited budget, you can't beat a fan that just blows it all out the window. This assumes that it isn't too cold outside to do that. You should also were a good respirator, even with the fans. They are not expensive.

I have read some about people talking about "negative pressure." Do I need to worry about this since my furnace and hot water heater are in the garage? Will that cause a Carbon Monoxide danger?  

[Mark J]

If you place a fan in a window and use it to exhaust air from your shop it will create negative pressure in the garage.  If you have an open window on the other side of the garage,  or partly open the garage door, to let in a goodly flow of air that negative pressure will be more than relieved and there will be plenty of air for the exhaust fan to exhaust and the furnace to burn and expel up the flue.  

If you install an exhaust fan and don't let any outside air in to replace what gets exhausted you will create negative pressure and begin to draw flue gasses into the garage.  Also you won't really be getting rid of much dust.

So an exhaust fan can work to clear the air of dust if you move enough cubic feet per minute out the window and replace at least that much (or more) with fresh outside air. 

If your shop is in a very cold or very hot climate, this may not be a desirable solution.  So an alternative is an air filtration unit.  There is a thread in The Shop:  

which touches on this topic.  There are numerous air filtration units out there.  In that thread there is a reference to a Wen unit that was pretty cheap.  There is also the small Rikon unit and take a look at the Grizzly line.  

Regardless of your solution a carbon monoxide detector would be a good investment.  

And an air filtiration unit is for dust.  It will not remove fumes. 

[Jfitz]

53 minutes ago, NIC said:

I work in a garage and when I sand I have a lot of dust in the air. What is the best way to get rid of that in the air? Can I buy those exhaust fan (the ones that have two fans) and mount that on a window? Would an air filter system work better? I am on a pretty limited budget. 

 

How are you sanding?  By hand, or with a ROS? 

If using a ROS....You can cut down a lot on the amount of dust in the air when sanding with a ROS by hooking it up to a shop-vac (or a "dust extractor" like the Festool).   Even better is to pair the shop vac with a dust deputy to collect the dust into a bucket and not have it clog the filter on the shopvac.  Note - the vac often creates *too much* suction, sucking the sander to the workpiece and preventing it from working correctly (leading to a bad sanding job).  I ended up drilling some air holes in the adapter right at my ROS in order to provide some relief from the suction.  YMMV.

If you are hand sanding, then a "downdraft table' can be helpful to capture the dust before it goes too far.  Also, the window fan/cross ventilation approach mentioned above can help.

 

 

[NIC]

10 minutes ago, Jfitz said:

 

How are you sanding?  By hand, or with a ROS? 

If using a ROS....You can cut down a lot on the amount of dust in the air when sanding with a ROS by hooking it up to a shop-vac (or a "dust extractor" like the Festool).   Even better is to pair the shop vac with a dust deputy to collect the dust into a bucket and not have it clog the filter on the shopvac.  Note - the vac often creates *too much* suction, sucking the sander to the workpiece and preventing it from working correctly (leading to a bad sanding job).  I ended up drilling some air holes in the adapter right at my ROS in order to provide some relief from the suction.  YMMV.

If you are hand sanding, then a "downdraft table' can be helpful to capture the dust before it goes too far.  Also, the window fan/cross ventilation approach mentioned above can help.

 

 

I have a ROS. Does hooking it up to a shop-vac make it harder to maneuver around. I make regularly some stools and have to be able to pick up and move around a lot. 

[AJ_Engineer]

Budget option is to wear a respirator and then open the garage door and use a leaf blower to blow all the dust out.

No matter the solution you should be wearing a respirator. 

Then I would do the fan in a window with another window across the garage open or garage door cracked open. 

Price goes up from there to point source collection (vacuums and downdraft tables) to air cleaners hanging from the ceiling.

[Jfitz]

53 minutes ago, NIC said:

I have a ROS. Does hooking it up to a shop-vac make it harder to maneuver around. I make regularly some stools and have to be able to pick up and move around a lot. 

Do you mean the vac hose getting in the way?  It does, somewhat.  You just need to strategize vac and hose placement as you work on the piece.  It's helpful if your vac is on casters.  Also - some hoses are more flexible and maneuverable than others. 

 

25 minutes ago, AJ_Engineer said:

Budget option is to wear a respirator 

I'm of the mind that a good respirator is always needed, no matter how good your dust collection is.  I admit that I might skip wearing it for a few tablesaw or bandsaw cuts....but I always wear it when sanding - even with a vac and dust deputy and ceiling mounted air cleaner.  

[NIC]

2 hours ago, Jfitz said:

Do you mean the vac hose getting in the way?  It does, somewhat.  You just need to strategize vac and hose placement as you work on the piece.  It's helpful if your vac is on casters.  Also - some hoses are more flexible and maneuverable than others. 

 

I'm of the mind that a good respirator is always needed, no matter how good your dust collection is.  I admit that I might skip wearing it for a few tablesaw or bandsaw cuts....but I always wear it when sanding - even with a vac and dust deputy and ceiling mounted air cleaner.  

What is a good respirator to get? I do both sanding and staining. Is there one that covers both dust and fumes?

[Jfitz]

10 minutes ago, NIC said:

What is a good respirator to get? I do both sanding and staining. Is there one that covers both dust and fumes?

An old but good video on respirators

https://www.thewoodwhisperer.com/videos/dust-in-time/

 

Good video on keeping them clean. They tend to get nasty on the inside...

https://www.thewoodwhisperer.com/videos/clean-maintain-respirator/

 

 

[Marmotjr]

The best respirator to get is the one that fits your face correctly, has the correct filters, and is not a pain to use.  

If it's a pain to use, you'll never use it.  

With the correct (meaning cleanish) filters, it will be easy to breathe.

But if it doesn't fit correctly, the right filters are pointless. 

[Guest Randy]

There are various options for sanding:

 

1. Connect a shopvac to your sander. This might involve purchasing an adapter for your sander to connect it to the vac, but it's definitely worth it. The best vacs use HEPA filters to ensure that the finest dust particles don't escape back into the air through the filter. 

2. A ceiling mounted air cleaner also contributes to the overall air quality, but I don't recommend using that exclusively. It works best in combination with a vacuum. Air cleaners don't filter as fine particles as a HEPA filter and I don't currently know of any air cleaner which can be outfitted with an economical HEPA filter.

3. A mask that filters out fine particles is almost a requirement regardless of what you do. I use a Trend Airshield Pro, powered "helmet" which circulates air through the helmet via a battery powered motor. It's expensive and there are plenty of other non-powered masks on the market these days.

Bottom line is that you should not be breathing the fine dust that sanding generates. That dust will eventually cause respiratory problems and sometimes people develop allergies because of the dust they are inhaling.

[BuilderBill]

Dust collection at the source is always the optimal solution. That requires relatively expensive equipment(a HEPA vac or DC system) and doesn't work with solvent vapors(unless you build a spray booth into your garage). So an exhaust fan will work if it moves enough air, just remember that what goes out must come in. If the air going out doesn't come in through the garage door or an open window it'll come from somewhere and that could be your furnace/water heater flue. If that's the case you'll definitely be sucking CO into your garage, not a good thing.

BUT: If you live in a new house or had your furnace/water heater replaced in the last 10 years both those appliances will draw outside air for combustion. You can tell if there's PVC pipe from them going to an outside wall instead of a metal flue pipe going up to the roof. If that's the case then all the exhaust fan will be sucking out(no windows open) will be the air you spent money on to heat or cool.

A respirator is always a good idea, stick with 3M. They're relatively inexpensive on Amazon and you can get either dust or organic solvent cartridges. But if you don't have a HE furnace and water heater you might want to stay away from stains and finishes that use organic solvents, the fumes don't play well with open flame.