Dust Collector in Attic

[Trever Williams]

I'm thinking about installing my DC in the attic above my garage to save space. Are there any pros or cons to that?

[Mike Heidrick]

A friend does it with his cyclone and exhausts it outside (he also has return air). It is out of site and very quiet. It was more difficult to install obviously but after that he has not looked back.

[ian maybury]

To brainstorm: Filter changes, fan/motor access and dust/chip removal might possibly be awkward depending on layout. You need to get the return air back into the workspace too. There's maybe a bit of extra vertical lift and ducting length involved. Might it entail a lot of duct bends which might lead to more pressure drop than yo would like?

My Pentz system (still installing) uses a half and half solution - it has the cyclone in the corner of an adjacent sharpening/engineering room downstairs, which leaves the chip collection bin on the floor with a long decently long drop into it via a flex hose.

The top of the cyclone protrudes up through the 8ft 2in ceiling into the loft, so the fan is left just above floor level. The 8in fan exhaust duct runs in under the eave under a sloped roof (it doesn't use any floor space) far enough to incorporate an silencer/attenuator, and then depending on how a blast gate is set either exhausts outside under the fascia (Summer), or drops vertically down through the ceiling of the same room and into an under worktop filter chamber for return to the shop via mesh panels in the intervening door. (Winter recirculation)

It gives a straight inlet into the cyclone (the duct runs between ceiling joists), makes mounting the fan and cyclone assembly off the loft floor easy, and hopefully will keep most of the fan and motor noise out of the workshop below.

ian