Exhaust fan for dust control

[meackerman]

putting in a whole house fan in the basement might do the trick if you have a way to route its exhaust to the outside.

[WilliamHodge]

Part of the problem might be the demand for air in the house.

If you have a wood stove or a dryer with no make up air supply, the low pressure could be drawing air through the shop. Another big source of air demand is an attic which has not been air sealed.

The energy efficiency people can do a blower door test on your house to find the leaks.

It's like Pablo Escobar said,. if there were no demand for drugs in the US, people wouldn't smuggle them here. You need to cut the demand for air in the house, as well as reducing the supply of dust from the shop.

[jteneyck]

Let me put it another way. If your shop is "sealed" from the rest of the house dust cannot escape, no matter how much you let accumulate. Exhaust is not the solution, in fact, it's an unworkable solution in the winter if you live in a cold climate. The solution is to physically isolate your shop.

John

[Kudzu]

Sure not trying to stir the pot but I don't understand why some of you have such major dust issues. I have a basement shop, granted it is a daylight basement but doors stayed closed most of the time to the outside and the only dust that gets in my house is from me carrying it up on shoes and clothes.

[Cooler]

I use a simple box fan ($20.00) held in place with a bungee cord to create a negative pressure for my darkroom. You don't need lots of negative pressure to prevent dust migration, it just has to be negative.

Add a timer to it so it continues to exhaust for long enough for the dust to settle before shutting off.

You can bungee this to any open window. Works fine. Two eye hooks and a 2 foot bungee cord and you are in business.

[Steve N]

Dave Diaman said:

---

I also have my shop on its own heat and ac so no dust or sound travels through the duct work.

---

That would be the difference, even with all the doors and fans, if your heat/ac is running downstairs, the dirt is running upstairs on a single system. Having dual systems will keep you clean upstairs, provided you have good controls on the dirt downstairs.

[Cian]

I use a small repurposed fan for fresh air. I have two window wells in my basement shop space. One window has the fan secured in a housing wherein it blows shop air outward, and the other window has a furnace filter for intake air. The plexiglass fan mounting allows for light to still come into the shop. However, know that this is only for bringing in fresh air - especially when finishing - rather than it is for dust control. For DC I have a cyclone piped to each machine plus an ambient air scrubber.

[todayIlearned]

I use one of these that I have installed on one of my windows. Naturally I open a bit my shop door when I turn it on.I use it only to clear the air then shut it down. Not good in subzero weather.

pic

[TDKPE]

I do something like that, too, and I only use the fan to quickly clear the air of fumes or dust, not to try to pull a vacuum to keep dust from sneaking under the door or into the ductwork. Although technically, that's exactly what it's doing, just at low SP due to another open window.



And I vent the cyclone out the other window, though I can swing the duct adapter out of the way to let air in.

[bubba]

wxwise said:

---

I have a basement shop, with numerous nooks and crannies that makes it impossible to caulk all of the places that saw dust could leave the shop and migrate through the rest of the house. I do have a dust collection system that I use religiously, along with a shop vac to collect dust from hand held routers and sanders.

Would a bathroom fan with large CFM provide enough "negative pressure" to keep the sawdust in the shop?

Thanks,
Scott near the Gateway City

---

Not that you are going to achieve this with a bathroom fan, but you need to be careful when you talk about creating negative pressure in a part of the house. If it is too great, then combustion fumes from furnace, water heater, etc. can be drawn down into the house instead of exiting through the chimney. I would rather have a house full of sawdust than a house full of carbon monoxide...