[OP]
Member
Anyone actually using an air quality monitor in their shop and getting interesting results from it? I run my dust collector, wear a mask when using my power tools, and have a jet air filter going nonstop, but I do wonder from time to time what the air quality actually is, and if my DC and air filter are doing enough. It would be interesting to know the actual results and risks/hazards of air particulates in real time.
Contributor
I paid for a Dylos a couple years ago and check it frequently. If the fines count exceeds 300 I put on my respirator. I have a Jet filter running most of the time and it will clear my small shop fairly quickly if fines get high during certain operations.
Moderator
I’ve had a Dylos for years and don’t keep it on all the time but used it to verify the dust collection at various situations. For example it showed the pickup at the 22/44 drum sander was quite good but as expected, the disk/belt sander was bad, bandsaw was good, at the lathe it depended on the way I worked. It helped me improve the air quality and let me know when not to skip the respirator.
Contributor
I have an inexpensive air quality monitor and while I don't know if it is accurate I have demonstrated to myself that it is useful. Earlier this summer we had some of the worst air quality here in Vancouver as a result of wild fires. I have a shop made air filter made from a 20" box fan and furnace filters. If I closed my garage shop door and turned on the air filter I would see a noticeable improvement in 15 to 20 min. I've seen similar improvements after generating a lot of dust in the shop and opening the door when the outside air quality is good and running a fan to circulate the air. So now I use it to know when to put on a respirator, open the door or just leave the shop for a while until the air quality improves.
Contributor
The air district for the LA region has tested a bunch of the consumer grade sensors against reference method-grade analyzers and posted the results. http://www.aqmd.gov/aq-spec/evaluations/summary-pm
I was involved with a project a few years ago with high school students where we decided to use the purple air sensors. They had pretty good performance and a good on-line interface if you want to access the data remotely.
Contributor
I got pretty serious about air quality last winter I think it was. I own two Dylos 1100s and have 4 of the $60 item from amazon. I ran all six side by side twice when I intentionally left the loading door to my wood stove open up to hazardous air quality (while wearing respiratory PPE). My finding, consistently is the Dylos and the less expensive item compare very favorably on both PM 2.5 and PM10 from about 6 micrograms per cubic meter up to around 200 mcg per cubic meter.
If you really want to know how excellent your air quality is below 6 mcg/m3, you will need to spend the money on the Dylos. If you want to know how hazardous your air quality is above 200 mcg/m3, you will need to spend the $$ for a Dylos. For a typical home owner/ home wood shop the $60 item will do fine, with one caveat.
The AQI calculation on the $60 item is based on breakpoints from the Chinese EPA and does NOT match the AQI breakpoints from the USA EPA. Also, the temperature readout is in Celcius.
The pictured item in this post was running summer 2022 inside my home, and also running was a filtration system I built last year for the house. The other picture is the outdoor ambient AQ readings near my home during wild fire (smoke) season last summer on the same day. I live closest to the NCore site, where the PM 2.5 count was 477 mcg/m3 in the moment.
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Contributor
I don't have room on the breaker panel for a 220 breaker. As recently posted in this thread, I have looked at my shop air quality and pretty much run my planer and jointer and belt /disc sander in the driveway. And the Radial Arm Saw, jeez Louise that RAS makes a mess.Originally Posted by Bryan Hall
I did have a 110/120 volt dust collector, and measured AQ in my two car garage with and without it. Having measured, I sold the dust collector to free up some floor space and run the electric donkeys, electric apprentices, whatever, outdoors. I do have a 20x20 furnace filter (MERV 13) duct taped to a 20" box fan, more than adequate for all hand tools up to 5 point rip saw in KD hardwood. With chisels, planes and joinery saws I don't run the filter/fan at all.
Contributor
The cheap monitor I referred to looks just like the one Scott posted a picture of.
[OP]
Member
With the data everyones getting, does anyone know what levels are actually hazardous? I watched/read this article from Jays Custom Creations: https://jayscustomcreations.com/2017...quality-meter/ and he's citing air quality by his house at 638/105 small/large particles. Anyone know what levels in the shop are trigger points for pop on a respirator or leave?
Moderator
I don’t think anyone knows for sure. I’ve read different guidelines but haven’t seen a definitive study. I suspect the problem is collecting lifetime data on enough people to determine what and how much they have been exposed to and who developed lung problems and who didn’t. Factors like past exposure, both environmental and shop, smoking history, and individual susceptibility (and genetics) seem to make a comprehensive hazardous level assessment complex. And this is before considering the type of wood dust, e.g. cocobolo vs yellow poplar!
A good place to start reading might be the OSHA guidelines for wood dust exposure in industry: https://www.osha.gov/wood-dust
There is a huge amount to read and I haven’t drilled down very deep and it was still confusing to my feeble brain. I suspect it, like many official regs, suffers from the need to do something but without definitive study errs on the side of caution. Who knows.
I do personally know of two people who had to quit woodturning because of wood-related sensitivity. One had his shop emptied and twice cleaned professionally and still couldn’t walk into it. He ended up selling the place and having a new house built. Last I talked to him he had started machining metal instead of wood.
Personally, I’ve had asthma for 60 years so I wear industrial quality 3M respirators with P100 filters when I’m doing things that have caused the Dylos to spike, whenever I can see dust, or even smell the wood strongly. I keep 1/2 dozen of these around the shop. (I’m allergic to various plants, animal dander, and hay so I usually wear protection around the farm too.)
BTW, I see the the Dylos monitor is still exactly the same price as when I bought mine in 2012.
JKJ
Contributor
I built a nice Clearvu cyclone system. I also have 2 powered industrial 650 cpm heppa filters in my shop, with integrated ductwork resulting in nice laminar air flow. While wood working my air quality is rarely above 2 or 3 PM2.5 as measured by one of those cheap Amazon units. This really doesn't seem possible.
i must be doing something wrong.
The only time I get a spike is when I roast coffee in my shop. Then the meter can spike to 300 or more.
The Plane Anarchist
Contributor
I considered a dylos and found this information to be valuable and objective.
Contributor
The EPA PM10 standard for ambient air is 150 micrograms/cubic meter on a 24 hour average.
the PM2.5 standard is 35 ug/m^3 on a 24 hour average.
The annual average standard for PM2.5 is 12 ug/m^3.
Some of these units return data as the AQI. 100 on the AQI is equal to the standard.
I wouldn’t want to be in a room with PM10 or PM2.5 at the 24 hour average standard for an extended period.
Contributor
I do wish the US EPA would throw away the AQI (Air Quality Index). It is a dimensionless number with a moving definition. I spent a little time on this when my project started and I personally prefer to work in micrograms per cubic meter.
Upstairs in the living area of my house with the wood stove running 24/7, I am running one 20x20 furnace filter (MERV 13) duct taped to a 20 inch box fan on low to both ease cool air from the back bedrooms along the floor towards the wood stove, and filter the indoor air.
I typically see PM2.5 as the controlling variable, the controlling particle for measuring indoor air quality, with ordinary counts of 6-10 mcg/m3 with the wood stove running, and 15-20 mcg/m3 of PM 2.5 while cooking. One time there was food on fire in the kitchen and PM10 was the controlling particle size for an hour or so.
I don't worry too much about PM10. You can wrap some mucous around those (if you are young, healthy and not compromised) and cough them out. PM2.5 not so much. You want your PM2.5 counts as low as possible. Like cigarette smoking, PM2.5 exposure seems to be lifetime cumulative.
Attached pic I found on the EPA website, printed, got coffee stains on and just now took a picture of. The left hand column, AQI good-moderate-blah-blah - has index numbers attached to it. If the AQI value returned from the particle counts is between 0 and 50 the AQI is "good", but the mcg/m3 counts associated with good air quality are 0-12 mcg/ m3. I think US EPA should ditch the AQI numbers and just assign the finding of "good air quality" to particle counts between 0-12 mcg/m3.
If you get the $60 monitor from Amazon you will have to do this anyway, as above, the AQI numbers generated by the $60 meter are based on the break points from the China EPA, so you will have to take the raw particle counts on the meter, then print the page I just took a picture of to look up the USA EPA AQI.
Contributor
I have the same cheap one the others mentioned, and have found it very useful and more than adequate for practical application. For me, I use it to learn RELATIVE air quality.
Put it in my living room... one reading. Base line.
Put it different places in my kitchen - a different baseline (worse)
Cook something - it spikes terribly
Put it in the shop - another baseline
Run the overhead filter - brings things down to the level of the living room.
Run the equipment with different dust collection solutions in place - this tells me whether a particular config is doing the job well enough to bring it to the baseline or if I need better collection. This was how I evaluated my DC and decided that it was adequate - my shop stays at levels similar to my living room (very low) - and much better than my kitchen while cooking!!
So I also find this little unit very useful and feel no need to invest in anything more sophisticated (I wouldnt know what to do with an absolute number if I had it - my back porch outside can see some high particles depending on the season and how the wind is blowing and if my shop is better than outside then thats pretty good imo)
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