Dust collection bag life

[Jim Young]

Does anyone know if DC bags have a life? I bought the 0.3 micron top bag from Grizzley. I think it works great (no others to compare it to) but it's already a few years old. Is there a time when you let the bag go and buy a new one?

[Bill Pentz]

Jim,

Yes, filter bags do wear out. What happens is they eventually get so much particulate matter clogged in the material that the resistance goes way up high and your DC passes less and less air. You can clean with a 60 psi or less air hose blowing gently from the outside in. Going higher in PSI, particularly with cartridge filters actually blows apart the material destroying its fine filtering ability.

With the all poly bags and cartridges you can wash these with a pretty high degree of success. Use a cleaner like 409 and then a gentle hand wash in something like Woolite in the sink. Running them through a washing machine may work once, perhaps twice but clobbers their filtering ability big time.

If you have a pressure gauge (Dwyer 2010 model Magnehelic) say from EBAY for about $20, it will let you know when it is bag or cartridge filter cleaning time. When the pressure goes way up, time to clean.

Hope this helps.

bill