Cleaning A Basement Shop

[Ken Krawford]

I’ve had a wood shop in my basement for over 25 years and “dust creep” has gotten pretty bad. The ceiling in particular is a source of concern. It is a typical basement with exposed floor joists that contain water and waste pipes, Romex cables and HVAC ducts.
Has anyone found a relatively easy yet effective way of dealing with dust in a ceiling configuration like this? I’m half tempted to get my backpack blower out and run it with all the blast gates open and my cyclone running.

[roger wiegand]

Every once in a while, after vacuuming up everything I can, I pull on a tyvek suit and powered respirator with HEPA filter and go in and blow off all the high surfaces with compressed air. I then leave for an hour or two to let the dust settle and come back in and vacuum thoroughly with my HEPA vacuum-- wearing the PAPR while I do. I tend to do it in the warm weather with all the windows and doors open to blow as much as possible outside. A stiff breeze helps. I've been working to improve my dust collection at the sources, but there is still enough to be problematic after a year.

Inside the house I'd want to be a lot more careful about spreading fine dust into the living areas. I'd suggest sticking to a HEPA-equipped vacuum and working hard not to release so much dust in the first place. Covering the ceiling with a smooth surface will make the task a lot easier.

[Ken Krawford]

Thanks for the feedback Roger. I appreciate it.

[Rod Sheridan]

Ken, I have the same type of shop as you, I use a HEPA vacuum.

Obviously the more you collect at source the cleaner the shop.

I wouldn't want to disturb the dust by blowing it, you'll just contaminate your house..............Rod.

[Yonak Hawkins]

I wouldn't want to disturb the dust by blowing it, you'll just contaminate your house.

I don't see how you could do any kind of thorough job without blowing. There are lots of nooks and crannies in my joist ceiling and plenty of places I couldn't get to with a vacuum hose.

..Which makes me wonder : What's the reason for doing it ? If it's to keep the dust from "raining" on your head, you could take a dry mop to the pipes. I find the dust really only falls off the pipes, not the flat surfaces so much, unless I bang a light fixture with a board or something.

[Tom Bender]

Putting a ceiling in my shop really helped with dust, as did paneling the walls.

My ceiling height is 98" and I really didn't want to give up any. And I wanted to have access to the stuff in the joist space so it was a while till I came up with this plan.

2 1/2" x 1/4" slats screwed to the bottom of each joist. 14" x 24" fiberglass ceiling tiles on top of them. The tiles are cheap and look cheap but it's a shop. I didn't yet come up with a way to make the joints pretty. These tiles can be bent in half to install.

There was some prep;
1. Rehang the lights to be flush with the face of the new ceiling. This meant relocating the outlets a few inches higher.

2. One last cleaning of the joist space

3. Extend the wall paneling an inch so the ceiling would cover the top.

4. Some other stuff I can't remember

And the slates look good because I applied a little money and labor to them. (recommended)

Bought Aspen (whitewood with no knots) 1 x 3, rounded over all 4 edges with a router, resawed, planed to 1/4" thick, painted white, screwed in place.