DC Duct to TS in New Shop

[Allan Vance]

I am new to woodworking and in the planning stage for a new 25'X30' shop building. The floor will be a concrete slab on grade. I would appreciate any thoughts anyone has on the best way to route my DC duct (6" PVC drain line) and power supply to the table saw. The options are to route the duct and electrical conduit under the slab before it is poured, or..... route the duct and electrical conduit above the ceiling and drop down to the table saw. Obviously, the downside of putting them in the slab is that I will loose fexibility in moving the table saw around....and the downside of dropping down from the ceiling is that they may get in the way when using the table saw. All of my other DC source points will be on or near the 30' wall where I will have a 6" PVC header for those tie-ins.

Also, should I run duct and electrical to additional "islands" in the shop before I pour the slab, or just drop down from the ceiling if needed in the future?


Thanks for your help!

[Joseph Tarantino]

a 750 sq' shop!!! i think i'd get lost in a shop that big! drop downs or take off along a wall that can be routed under tools or benches to minimize trippeing hazzards are my preferences. not a big fan of the "in the floor" approach.

[Van Huskey]

First, either way works and you sure don't want cords and hoses laying across your floor. From the ceiling isn't bad at all, you make your AC and DC drops from the left side of the saw where it doesn't get in the way. I prefer it to under the slab unless you are SURE you won't move the TS, if you are positive of the layout then it can be excellent as well.

[Joe A Faulkner]

Here's a post of a guy who built his tools in a 14x7 foot island clustered around the DC. May not be everyone's cup of tea, but he sure packs a lot of tools in an efficient space.
http://www.finewoodworking.com/Works....aspx?id=23974

[Nick Lazz]

How tall is your ceiling? Mine is 13'+ so headroom wasn't a problem. My shop is virtually the same size and I ran electrical through conduit to center for tablesaw.

[Jerome Hanby]

My ceiling is insanely high. When I was adding electrical for lights and shop tools, I dropped a 240 and a pair of 120 volt circuits in the area where my table saw lives. I'm going to create an "island" there with my table saw, Jointer, planer, and my big Jet dust collector. I've got a pair of smaller delta collectors that I picked up on clearance a while back. I'll use one for my Wife's lathe area and the other for the area where the Shopsmith and drill press live. Seemed to make sense in my setup to avoid running ducting. One of these years when we move to our final (hopefully) location, the shop will have a raised floor and all the wiring and ducting will be down below.

[Dan Case LR]

Here's a post of a guy who built his tools in a 14x7 foot island clustered around the DC. May not be everyone's cup of tea, but he sure packs a lot of tools in an efficient space.
http://www.finewoodworking.com/Works....aspx?id=23974

That's one lovely piece of engineering. If I had that much floor space, I'd probably build a couple of them (with different machines in each, of course).

D.

[Kirk Poore]

I ran a trench to the middle of my shop when I had the slab poured. The trench is U-shaped concrete, with a recessed lip on each side to support a cover. I'm in the process of installing an Oneida DC now, and the trench will hold the pipe for my TS, shaper, and planer, and already holds the wiring for these. Realistically, I think you could do this with maybe a branch in the trench. That would get you within 3-4 feet of any central position, and give you only a short above-ground run. My shop is 22x26.

Kirk

[David Roberts,Fitchburg,Ma]

I am new to woodworking and in the planning stage for a new 25'X30' shop building. The floor will be a concrete slab on grade.

Since you are in the planning stage,instead, you should be asking us what we are sorry we didn't do when we built our shops. The first question, where do you live? Then, are you including insulation, heat, A/C, water/sink, height of your shop, materials you are using inside., etc. I built a 24x 40' pole barn, went with concrete floor, but no insulation underneath, sorry about that. I'm in North Central Mass, and once the floor gets cold, it stays cold in the shop until spring. I didn't add insulation underneath, so went the next best choice, went with 2" polyiso and a 3/4" Advantech (plywood) floor, it helped a fair amount. I was standing on (horse) stall mats when I worked on concrete, but wood is so much better.
As to your questions about buried D/C piping, I have moved my TS 3 times in 6 years. If you want to see my shop/D/C systems, you can check out my shop pictures, (under my prior posts), I also have a youtube video tour.
I thought I did a huge amount of preplanning before I started building my shop, I know now, I needed 50 more hours of research. Good Luck.

[Randy Henry]

When I built my shop 8 years ago, 24'x40', I knew my PM66 was going to be my main focal point. I took my time and planned quite a bit and made templates of the machines I had out of cardboard, and luckily I got it right. I put in a 6" pipe under the slab, capped the pipe, cut an opening in the pipe and made a chute in the bottom of the saw for the dust to enter the pipe. The blast gate is over at the wall. I also ran the electrical under the slab also for the saw and workbench behind the saw using 1 1/4" conduit in case I need to make any changes. I have never had any reason to move the saw, even after adding several new larger machines since then. I like this arrangement as there are never any cords/hoses to move or sweep around. With my other machines, I have moved them around to accomodate upgrades, so the electrical and dc are moved when required.

[Kent A Bathurst]

.......... you sure don't want cords and hoses laying across your floor.

No, preferably not. However........My TS table is about 6' square, and is used for everything imaginable. There was no place to put a vertical drop that didn't seem to me like it would get in the way at some point. So - I decided to decline the coin toss, and defer the decision till later - figgered the answer would magically come to me at some point. I have a 6" main coming across the floor to a wye to the TS, and continuing on [under the stairs] to the jointer. These two sections cross main thru-ways. I used friction-fit quick connects and short sections of flex hose, so that I could pull the pipe loose and swing it out of the way.

After a few weeks of that noise, I stopped. Have not disconnected the pipe in a couple years. Everyone [wife and neighbors] uses the shop entrance - basement door off the driveway - and it is now second nature for everyone to simply step across the hurdles.

It turned out to be much, much less of a big deal than I had thought. No one - not even me - has ever tripped. Not even close. Some clumsy bozo let a sheet of ply slip out of his hands and put a bit if a dent in one pipe, but that's all.

If I was building a new shop, there is a solid-gold 100% chance that mine would go under the floor. I would put in the "trough and cover plate" mentioned earlier, and have a couple extra runs of that in strategic areas for future machines and/or changes. Actually - my ideal would be a poured floor with a raised wooden floor above it.

[ian maybury]

The thought that always comes to mind when i see the likes of that beautifully put together 'island' and think of underfloor ducting is that when you integrate a lot of functions in a single design it becomes a lot easier to overlook/get wrong a required function, and a lot harder to modify or fix the problem because of all the constraints imposed by the other functions.

It possibly depends where you are. If head height is tight, then underfloor may be a good choice - but it sounds like it would be very inflexible if as is fairly inevitable you want to change stuff in future.

There's also the thought that it represents one heck of a lot of labour - maybe you have other priorities.

If you duct the saw overhead, and drop more or less vertically to the top guard and ditto slightly to the right hand side and forward of the rip table/widest rip you can accommodate it shouldn't be too much of a restriction....

ian

[Steve Forssberg]

I used both approaches in my shop. I wanted my table saw free from obstructions, so both the electric and DC are routing below the slab to the nearest wall (~6-8ft). From there I tied into the overhead run. The rest of the shop is all overhead. I have in floor radiant heat so that also factored into my decision to keep most of the drops overhead.

[Allan Vance]

Thanks for all the feedback and suggestions. I really like the island concept and am working on a layout that will place my TS, BS, J/P, and router in a central island with below slab 220 V power and DC duct.