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Thread: Educate me on putting a DC in a closet.

  1. #1

    Educate me on putting a DC in a closet.

    In my old shop I had my single stage DC parked in a corner of the shop. I used a Thien baffle on top of a metal trash can that seemed to do a very good job catching the larger saw dust and chips. My DC is a Grizzly and came with the cloth bags on it. I retrofitted it several years ago with a Wynne filter on top and plastic bag on the bottom. Even with this setup I can tell I'm still getting fine dust in the air.

    I'm in the process of building a new shop and I gave half a thought to exhausting the DC outside. However, I live in the frozen north where I heat the shop for 4 months out of the year with a Modine Hot Dawg heater. I don't want to pull my heat out of the shop and blow it outside all winter so I think the exterior exhaust is a non-starter.

    I read several posts where other woodworkers alluded to having put their DC in a closet to cut down on noise. That got me thinking...I'm considering building a box around the filter end of the DC and mounting a couple high quality furnace filters on the box as a second stage of filtering. I figure by doing that I keep the heat in the shop while (hopefully) significantly cutting down on fine dust getting into the air. I do use an air cleaner mounted on the ceiling but I want to stop as much dust as possible before it even reaches the shop air.

    Has anyone done anything like this? Pros/Cons, lessons learned?

    Thanks

  2. If you purchased an aftermarket filter, chances are they made a sales statement saying how many cubic feet of air flow per square inch or square foot of their filter material. Estimate the air volume of your DC and provide enough area in your proposed secondary filters so that the air flow in them does not greatly exceed that in a home system, as like that for which they were designed. You do not want them to blow out!

    Just be aware, the finer the dust, the more difficulty in removing it. The same thought holds true for your lungs too.

  3. #3
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    Do you think the fine dust is coming through the DC filtration, or is it escaping from the tool and ending up in ambient, and then getting stirred around by the DC activity?

    I'd be interested in whether people see an improvement in fine dust with this sort of secondary filter, particularly if it isn't any finer than the wynn filter you have on the DC.

    I would recommend that any return-air filtration be sized to not add much resistance to the total system.

    Matt

  4. #4
    Not meaning to be controversial, but there are many who consider the heat loss issue an urban myth.

    I think it could be possible in a very small shop with a hefty DC unit, I think it would pay to think about how much time your DC will actually be running and I think you'll find the heat loss won't be as bad as you think. For most guys in the average shop, it isn't even every day, and when it is used, it is not continuous and might add up to only a couple hours total run time per day.

    So if this is your scenario, think about how much heat do you lose opening a door 6-10 x/day, or leaving the door open to carry lumber into the shop, vs. how many hours/day the DC is running?

    It can vary depending on the shop and climate, but if you have a decent sized shop, I seriously doubt it will be an issue.

  5. #5
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    I'm a closet believer... Mine was designed to be sound-reduced and provides a baffled air return (unfiltered...it's not really necessary for me) and keeps the noise of both the cyclone and my compressor down substantially. If I put in a vacuum table system for my CNC, the unit will go in there, too, for the same reason. I believe I have a thread here somewhere that details my construction method.
    --

    The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...

  6. #6
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    I built a room in the basement that is adjacent to the garage for the DC compressor & some storage. It is heavily treated for sound deadening & has a serpentine return air duct with acoustic duct liner. It's very effective. And it gets those 2 large machines out of my shop

    I too live in the frozen north so exhausting outside is not an option. There are those who think the heat loss is a myth, but that doesn't change the fact that when that air is exhausted outside, the heat that you paid for to warm that air is lost with it. It's hard physics that no amount of belief otherwise will change. Another downside is that if your blowing all that warm air outside, there will be a tendency to minimize run time by starting & stopping frequently. That blower motor is only rated for a few starts per hour. Exceeding that will greatly shorten the life of the motor.

    I have a HEPA filter that seems to do a very good job as there has been no dust settle on surfaces in that room.

  7. #7
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    I built a 4x8 sound-insulated closet in my new shop for a 5-hp cyclone and 5-hp air compressor, both of which are LOUD. With the closet it's quiet enough to hear a whisper in the shop.

    The cyclone DC has a pair of Wynn filters which work very well. I check how well they work with an air quality monitor, the Dylos particulate counter.

    I return the filtered air to the shop through a baffled duct I built to snake through the trusses. To cut down on the sound the duct has lots of turns and a couple of baffles and I sprayed the inside with a rubber coating. Hard to get a photo but here is my design sketch:

    Dust_collector_baffle_small.jpg

    If I could come up with an easy way to dump the unfiltered air outside I would. But as it is, the cyclone (ClearVue) is so efficient almost nothing gets passed to the filters and the filtered air is incredibly clean.

    JKJ

  8. #8
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    When y'all build these closets are you actually making them permanently framed? Or a freestanding "L"? Seems like it would be hard to access the DC and you'd have to frame in a door.

  9. #9
    My dust collector exhausts outside most of the year, but on really cold days I use the filters. I built an 8" blast gate so it is possible to just move the gate to either use filters or exhaust outside. My furnace just can't keep up on cold days. My cyclone is in my storage room so the noise is greatly reduced.

  10. #10
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    Closet and access door

    Quote Originally Posted by Thomas Crawford View Post
    When y'all build these closets are you actually making them permanently framed? Or a freestanding "L"? Seems like it would be hard to access the DC and you'd have to frame in a door.
    Mine is permanent, with studs. I have 6" walls so I built it with 2x4 studs in a "staggered stud" arrangement sometimes used in the recording industry as part of soundproofing. No stud connects from the inside to outside walls to minimize contact sound transmission. The insulation is woven through the studs.

    staggered_studs_IMG_2013071.jpg

    The cyclone, BTW, is mounted on an outside wall instead of a inside closet wall. Some people put the DC on a free-standing stand to minimize sound transmission.

    For access I put in a double steel door, 5' wide. (I built the entire shop myself so framing 10 doors instead of 9 wasn't a big problem ) The door opens into another room in the shop, not the main shop. This further helps with the sound reduction since although the doors are insulated, they aren't as insulated as the walls. That room also has a close garage door to make emptying the bin easier. The photo shows the walk-through door to that room, the closet double door, and one of the garage doors.

    Finishing up construction:
    DC_door-construction-AA069_IMG_3037.jpg shop_floorplan.jpg

    With the luxury of designing and building the shop myself this was a lot easier than trying to retrofit an existing building.

    JKJ

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Thomas Crawford View Post
    When y'all build these closets are you actually making them permanently framed? Or a freestanding "L"? Seems like it would be hard to access the DC and you'd have to frame in a door.
    I framed in a door.
    --

    The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...

  12. #12
    The question isn't whether you will cool the shop by exhausting warm air to outside and replacing it with cold air from outside; you will. The question is whether that will be problematic for you in terms of temperature and energy dollar loss. That may depend on how much you pay to heat, the capacity of your heater, the volume and thermal mass of your shop, the difference in temperature between inside and outside, and the length of time you run the dust collector. The other thing to remember is that you also need to provide draft (make up air) to your heater, unless you are running some kind of electric heat.

    For example, I'm in MN, and me running my 3 HP Dust Gorilla an hour or two continuously when it is below 0F isn't unheard of in the winter. I have a 24x28x9 shop, so the volume of air is roughly 6,000 cubic feet. If I exhaust directly outside at between 800-1000 CFM, I am changing the shop air completely every 6 to 8 minutes from 65F to maybe -10F air, a 75 degree temperature differential.

    As I don't have 800 CFM (plus draft) of leakage, I would need to open a window for make up air. My 45,000 BTU Reznor probably could keep up, but why would I want to pay to run it continuously? And in front of the window, it would be -10. I have 3 openable windows in my shop. Do I want it to be 10 below in front of my workbench, my bandsaw, or my table saw? The other thing is that I will be heating winter outside air 75 degrees to bone drying, wood splitting dryness. As it is I struggle to keep moisture in the shop without venting the DC outside. Summer is the same thing in reverse, pumping heat and humidity into the shop with only a 7,000BTU AC to cool and dry it.

    My closet is framed in semi-permanently with two doors that open to expose the long side of the collector for easy access. My air compressor is in there as well. The inside is lined with acoustic ceiling tile to suck up as much noise as possible. Make up air goes out the bottom of the doors, which are raised up about 4 inches off the ground. I have the Oneida HEPA filter, so the fine dust is captured. It does bother me that I lose about 3x6 of floorspace due to the DC closet. I'd like to figure out a way to mount it outside of the shop but still enclose it to return the conditioned air to the shop.
    Last edited by Andrew Seemann; 10-31-2018 at 2:29 PM.

  13. #13
    Thanks all, I appreciate the input. A lot to think about but I like the idea of a baffled exhaust in the shop setup. If I build an enclosure correctly I can probably use the top of it for storage. With 10' ceilings I'll have plenty of space above the filter.

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by Skip Camejo View Post
    Thanks all, I appreciate the input. A lot to think about but I like the idea of a baffled exhaust in the shop setup. If I build an enclosure correctly I can probably use the top of it for storage. With 10' ceilings I'll have plenty of space above the filter.
    If you want to reduce the sound be sure to insulate the top well too! Before I built my closet I read a lot of info on the ClearVue forum about sound insulation.

    JKJ

  15. #15
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    I framed with steel studs. Walls are 2 1/2" studs set into 6" track secured to the slab & independent 2 1/2" tracks on top in 2 rows with 2 layers of 3" Safe-n-Sound and 2 layers of 5/8" fire rated gypsum board on each side & Green Glue between the layers. The ceiling is framed independently of the floor above, with the joists supported by the inside wall framing & same gypsum board assembly as the walls. It really is a completely isolated room within a room.

    The opening has 2 prehung, insulated exterior doors mounted back to back. The jamb are not connected but have 3/8" gap that is filled with closed cell weather stripping. Because the foam insulation in the doors doesn't deaden sound much , I fastend a layer of 3/4" MDF 2 one side of each door using Green Glue between. I added a second layer of quality weather stripping ot each door jam. Even the threshholds for the 2 doors are isolated.

    The return air duct is 30" x 10" & has a 90* & 2 45* bends with 1" acoustic duct lining insulation.

    The weak link in the whole system is that the compressor, a 3HP noise making monster of a compressor with steel feet is sitting directly on the concrete & some sound is being transmitted through it. I need to get some good isolators to sit underneath.

    It was a super fun project & I even taught myself to tape, cause it was such a small room, It was a better tape job than the rest of the house.

    I think I will consider installing a system to be able to exhaust to the outside during the summer months. That would extend the life of the filters a bit

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