Dust Collection in basement shop

The smartest thing that I ever did was to build a separate shop detached from the house. I had a basement shop in my former house and I was forever getting into trouble from bringing sawdust into the upstairs on my clothing, shoes, etc. but even though I collected the dust as I created it, some also mixed with the air and got upstairs, settling on the furniture, etc. When we moved, I vowed to never have a shop inside the house again, and most of my shop remained in boxes for 2 years while we settled into the new house. Then I built a separate shop building, and moved my shop into it. My only regret here is that I didn't make it larger.

My shop has a dust collector with cyclonic separator and it's exhaust is vented to the outdoors 14' above the ground, so even the tiniest particles of dust never get back into the shop, once collected. It works very well for all of my finer sawdust sources, but isn't adequate for my planer, jointer, or table saw. I plane my wood outside the shop, collecting the chips in a 60 gallon barrel. The table saw is a Unisaw, so it collects most of the sawdust in it's base and I shovel it out several times per year. The jointer drops it's chips down a chute into a small plastic trash can that gets dumped often. It's not the best control for my sawdust, but at least the finer dangerous sawdust is kept to a very minimum. I use a heat pump for heating and cooling the shop, and I keep a high quality pleated furnace filter on it's air intake, so it does double duty as my shop air cleaner too, which is great because I need a way to collect the finer sawdust that escapes my table saw and jointer or any other sawdust that leaks out of my other tools and into my shop air.

Whenever I leave my shop I always blow myself off with compressed air, but being in the shop when I do this causes some sawdust to remain on my shoes, but by the time that I reach the house 150' away and have stamped my feet a few times on the way, I bring so little sawdust with me that she never complains about it any more.

There are other benefits to a separate shop. You get to work undisturbed for much longer. If really needed, they can reach you by cell phone or intercom, which you can answer when you have turned the machine off. I have a sign on the windowed entrance door warning not to enter if a power tool is running, so no surprises or change of attention resulting in safety issues either. They can look in and watch through the door window, and then enter when I turn the machine off.

If you absolutely must build your shop in a basement, do your best to isolate it from the heating and air conditioning system in your house, and do your best to come up with an air lock kind of method to keep the sawdust in the shop and out of the rest of the house to keep family harmony high. A good shop dust collector that filters out the micron and sub micron sized dust is a significant but expensive step in this direction.

Charley

WEN makes an air filter you hang next to a wall, from the ceiling to get a circulation going. It is very reasonable and I think it is even rebranded by Grizzly. I got one on sale for $99. It has a timer and 3 speeds. I leave it on for 2 hours after I leave the shop. Filters and motor are pretty much the same as the much more expensive Jet. See pix.

I have a Harbor Freight 2hp with Wynn 1 micron filter on it that I had inside the shop that greatly reduced free floating dust, but wore a mask at all times anyhow. But my shop is outside in a large shed. The whole DC setup with a cyclone is now in a lean-to space outside the shop. I have one more filter the air passes through to return to the shop. Hot summers, cold winters, so I don't lose heated/AC air. By far prefer having it outside. Far less dust to inhale. Still feel better using a mask in the shop whenever a tool is running.

DesertRatTom said:

WEN makes an air filter you hang next to a wall, from the ceiling to get a circulation going. It is very reasonable and I think it is even rebranded by Grizzly. I got one on sale for $99. It has a timer and 3 speeds. I leave it on for 2 hours after I leave the shop. Filters and motor are pretty much the same as the much more expensive Jet. See pix.

I have a Harbor Freight 2hp with Wynn 1 micron filter on it that I had inside the shop that greatly reduced free floating dust, but wore a mask at all times anyhow. But my shop is outside in a large shed. The whole DC setup with a cyclone is now in a lean-to space outside the shop. I have one more filter the air passes through to return to the shop. Hot summers, cold winters, so I don't lose heated/AC air. By far prefer having it outside. Far less dust to inhale. Still feel better using a mask in the shop whenever a tool is running.

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Thanks for the replies guys. I wear a mask in the shop as well and plan to continue doing so going forward. I was looking at these air filters as a possible addition as well. I guess putting the collecter outside would be ideal but I don't think its an option due to my neighboring houses. I'd surely be pissing off the neighbors anytime I ran it. I could put it in a shed but thats an added expense that I'd rather not have right now. I think somewhere down the line that will be the way to go, maybe sooner than later.

A little more info on the room, it is seperated from the main basement area and can be closed off while working. The are no windows in this portion of the basement as it is completely underground. The wife isn't an issue as she left a long time ago lol. Point taken about the dust be taken throughout the house though

So my thoughts right now are geting the oneida and the Wen/grizzly air filter. The main question is the setup, do I need to route the Oneida filter outside of the shop or does that matter? I apologize if some of the questions seem like no brainers, I haven't setup collection like this before.

Edit: To answer the question about the DC collecting all the dust that the machines are putting off, this will mainly be for the CNC machine itself. I'll likely do sanding and heavy dust activities outside.

That's a nice DC unit. You can surely set it up outside the shop. Less noise. You can go through a wall pretty easily (Rockler has a long, 4 inch tube just for this purpose). Put your on/of switch inside the shop room. Use hard tubing in wherever you can instead of flex. Save that to go from a straight pipe to the moving parts of the machine.

Depending on weather, if you prefer sanding inside, you could make a flat box with holes for sanding. I will pull most of the sawdust right into the DC unit. You would use a Y connector with a blast gate, and connect a hose from the Y to the sanding DC box. Don't use T shaped connectors if you can help it.

With no wife to consider, you could easily add a filter box through one wall to allow the air to recycle through one or two layers of filters. Save your AC or heat. I'm having breathing problems, probably from other causes than dust, but man, it's no fun. Keep that mask going. I got the Rockler in the picture several years ago and it really works well for me. Air leaks from the top under pressure and keeps my glasses from fogging.

I have a Clearvue cyclone in my basement shop plumbed to the machines with thin wall 6" PVC(sewer line). I put it in a storage room next to my shop behind a solid wood door. Cut down the noise significantly. I put vents between the storage room and shop so the air removed from shop could make its way back into the shop. It has a remote activator which I leave hanging in the middle of the shop. Works great. The Oneida is similar and will work just as well. I also have a hanging filter like Tom. I turn it on for a few hours when I am leaving for the night. I did a thread on it on router forums if you need tips on hooking up your shop.

You can also build a sound dampening cabinet around the Oneida. If you go to the clearvue site there are lots of examples. They discuss venting to keep it cool and using sound dampening materials in the walls of the box.