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Basement workshop dust collection

Basement workshop dust collection (post #168656)

akrishnamurt on Mon, 08/15/2011 - 21:31

Workshop

What are your thoughts about having a shop in the basement in the same area as the furnace and water heater? I'm mainly worried about the dust getting into the HVAC system. If I had a really good dust collection system, would this be anything to worry about?

Any recommendations on dust collection system? I plan to start small (table saw, miter saw, drill press, mortiser, planer).

Also, is there any concern with having all this dust and potential static producers in the same area as the HVAC and water heater (both gas powered)?

Thanks in advance for your help - Anand.

Fire and sawdust. (post #168656, reply #1 of 1)

by swenson in reply to akrishnamurt [original] on Tue, 08/16/2011 - 05:12

I have a thousand sq foot basement shop with a gas water heater and a gas furnace right in the middle of it. I only put in dust collection when I got a planer and a jointer. You just have to do it for those chip makers. I added my table saw and lathe to the DC at that time too. It never crossed my mind that there could be a problem until one day when I posted some pictures of the shop in this forum and got some comments here about the fact that I had a furnace and water heater in the shop. Some asked questions about the danger of that. I never learned what the danger was. It has something to do with the idea that fire and sawdust are in the same space. But there are no open flames and there are no air intake ducts to the AC in the basement. The air that feeds the flames in the heater and furnace come in from outside alongside of the exhaust pipes. I have never had any problems but I too have wondered about this. One last thing. When I built my home twenty four years ago it was an all electric house. Ten or twelve years ago I converted to gas for heat and hot water. The installers put in the conversions to gas in a shop that was full of sawdust. They didn't seem one bit concerned about it and neither did the inspectors that checked it out.

I sure hope you get better answers than this one as I am interested too.