New shop question

[harold brock]

My wife and I signed a contract on a house today. I will be using the 2 car garage for my shop as I am now. The new house has a gas water heater in the garage, where my old shop had an electric one. Does anyone see any trouble with the gas water heater and all the saw dust. I do have a dust collector on all my stationary tools, but it can only do so much. What are your thoughts. Is this safe or do I need to consider putting an electric w/h in its place.

[glenn bradley]

I have a gas WH and a gas dryer that I run while working in the area. No problem with normal ventilation and dust collection. You would suffocate long before you got a dust-dense enough environment to have a problem.

[Chris Padilla]

Harold,

My garage has a gas dryer and water heater and gas-fired furnace in it...along with my shop and all associated air-contaminents, i.e. wood dust. Life is fine so far for 10 years with this set up.

I only wish they were not there so I could nab more space! :D

[Tom Veatch]

... Does anyone see any trouble with the gas water heater and all the saw dust. ...

If it's dust explosion you're concerned about, don't be.

According to the research reports I've read, the physics of the flame propagation front necessary to sustain a dust explosion is such that visibility in the dust cloud would be on the order of a meter or so. If you can see the far wall of the shop through the dust, explosion is much less a concern than the respiratory health issues.

[Karl Brogger]

The dust has to be very, very fine, and very dense to be explosive. When it does holy cows! I've thrown shovel fulls of dust from the dust collector on an open fire, it is impressive. Especially when the dust is almost all entirely from a widebelt sander.

[Alan Schaffter]

The only problem you might have is if you have fairly tight garage, close the door, and vent the DC outside- that will draw the flu gases into the shop and give a you a mighty bad carbon monoxide headache. Again, a tight shop and a vented DC, could possibly blow out the pilot light if the water heater has one.

[Don Bullock]

The problem that I see with this is that it takes up shop space.:eek: