Workbench location vs. ceiling vents

[Aaron Rappaport]

Hi All,

I'm working on the floor plan for a hand tool shop in my basement, and find myself wondering if there are any rules of thumb regarding how far to keep workbenches (and lumber racks) from ceiling vents. If anyone knows of such rules, or has horror stories to relate, I'd be grateful to hear them.

Thanks,

Aaron

[Joshua Lucas]

The only considerations I can think of, in decreasing order of importance:
1. Make sure the vent doesn't interfere with your lighting setup.
2. Air blowing from the vent could stir up sawdust. This could be mildly annoying but probably not much of a problem, especially if you keep your bench fairly clean.
3. In the summer it could be nice to have cold air blowing on you.

As for lumber racks I can't imagine it would make any difference whatsoever.

[Richard Coers]

Wow, I've never heard of anyone being concerned about that. Most are just pleased to get any conditioned air in their shops. There just can't be any rules of thumb, but I'm going to watch for entertainment!

[George Yetka]

I wouldnt be concerned. I would make sure I monitored humidity in a basement but as this room seems to be conditioned space you are probably fine.

[Cameron Wood]

Are the vents supply registers for the home forced air heating system?

There are some issues if so.

[Jimmy Harris]

The only think I would really be concerned with, is if wood got really wet. I'm talking soaked. Then, letting it dry anywhere near a fan or moving air will probably cause it to crack. I've had that happen to me before. Otherwise, your conditions should remain pretty stable, and I wouldn't think that it would make all that much of a difference to the wood, one way or another. I think so long as you kept everything far enough away from the vents that they don't block the vents and prevent them from doing their job, you should be fine.

[Tim Janssen]

My 31ft by 11.5ft shop is in the basement of our bungalow. There is a standard 4" by 10" vent in the ceiling near one end of the room. It supplies the room with heating and cooling depending on the season. Being a basement, ceiling height is about 7.5 ft, could be slightly less.
I have never had any problems. We have lived here for 31 years although I built the shop probably about 4 or 5 years after we moved in.
So don't worry!
Cheers,

Tim
507903

507904

[mike stenson]

It's going to be more stable than my unconditioned barn, that swings from 10° to 110° and from 10% humidity to 85%.

[Andrew Hughes]

The best placement for a handtool work bench is a spot that get low raking morning light. This type of natural light reveals everything.
Since you in the basement you still want to try for some raking light.
I haven’t any opinion on air flow my shop is open air.
Good Luck

[Aaron Rappaport]

Are the vents supply registers for the home forced air heating system?

There are some issues if so.

Yes. I should have been clearer in my initial post. I'm primarily worried about different drying rates at the two ends of a workbench, or of a piece of lumber.

Aaron

[Scott Winners]

Yes. I should have been clearer in my initial post. I'm primarily worried about different drying rates at the two ends of a workbench, or of a piece of lumber.

Aaron

I share your concern. Do you know the duty cycle on the HVAC system? If the HVAC is running more or less constantly, there likely will be a temperature, and therefore a humidity gradient along the length of long stock stored with one end near and the other end far from the HVAC system. I don't have any stories one way or the other, but I am trying it this year myself.

[Jimmy Harris]

Yes. I should have been clearer in my initial post. I'm primarily worried about different drying rates at the two ends of a workbench, or of a piece of lumber.

Aaron
There are two kinds of moisture in wood. The first, the one we generally deal with, is the moisture content within of the cells of the wood. This is the drying that usually takes a year per inch of thickness or whatever. It's slow. As such, with your A/C cycling on and off, your wood will mostly average out between the cycles. So it won't have much of an impact, as the process is so slow there won't be enough time for any significant difference to build up.

The other kind of moisture in wood is the moisture content between the cells of the wood. This is what happens with a piece of wood get rained on or soaked in standing water. It's a much faster process of drying and is much more likely to lead to problems when exposed to the air from your A/C. A piece of wet wood like this might take only a week to dry out. That's fast enough that you don't get the same averaging out effect.

[James Pallas]

Keep in mind. If you are supplying air to your shop it has to have return air somehow. That means you are using that air for supply air to the whole house. You have to have a very good filter on your unit to clean that air up. Any small particles go to the whole house.
Jim

[Edward Weber]

One issue is also finishing, I think everyone can figure out why

[Aaron Rappaport]

I share your concern. Do you know the duty cycle on the HVAC system? If the HVAC is running more or less constantly, there likely will be a temperature, and therefore a humidity gradient along the length of long stock stored with one end near and the other end far from the HVAC system. I don't have any stories one way or the other, but I am trying it this year myself.

Well, the *air flow* is constant because we leave the fan on all the time. The duty cycle for whether the air is heated or cooled varies from 10 minutes to several weeks depending on the season (short in summer and winter and long in spring and fall, when no temperature control is needed much of the time).

[Aaron Rappaport]

One issue is also finishing, I think everyone can figure out why

James and Edward, thanks very much for these points. I'd never even thought of them! The return is some 8 feet down an open hall from my workshop room. In response to James' point about air filtration: The filter on the forced air machine seems to be kind of middle of the road in terms of quality of seating, etc. In the past, I've had some problems with rusting file cabinets in the same room as my workbench, so I'm planning to saw outside, as much as is feasible. But if the neighbors are put off by the noise of hand-sawing (six year old on one side of townhouse and 1 and 3 year olds on the other - all still napping presumably) then I'm going to be pretty stuck unless there's some good option for controlling the dust from hand-sawing. Ah, there's one more option: I can do the rough milling and sawing at one of the three relatively nearby maker-spaces. I'm very fortunate to have them!

Aaron

[Scott Winners]

Well, the *air flow* is constant because we leave the fan on all the time. The duty cycle for whether the air is heated or cooled varies from 10 minutes to several weeks depending on the season (short in summer and winter and long in spring and fall, when no temperature control is needed much of the time).

Yup, I hear you. I work pretty hard to keep my lumber storage 1) as long as possible for as long as possible but also 2) at or near household conditions. If I had thousands and thousands of board feet on hand of course I would keep a lot of it outdoors, but I strongly prefer to keep furniture lumber at or near household conditions for a year or two before I make something fussy from it.

If I have a year's worth of 4/4 lumber indoors I am good, but if I am thinking about cutting dovetails or dadoes in something that came indoors last week I got some anxiety. Having constant airflow, I think, is a good thing and should minimize your (my) problems.

[steven c newman]

For those of us whose shop is in a basement....?

I have a register for an upstairs room...that has a series of vent holes drilled at the point where it turns 90 degrees up into the floor boards overhead. It is located about right over the Tablesaw...so, non-issue for my bench.