Maintaining excellent indoor air quality is important while working in a woodshop and sanding or cutting wood. During the course of work, the shop will be filled with airborne dust – it’s bound to happen. A woodshop air filtration system plays an important role in keeping great air quality and reducing airborne dust. However, it’s important to note, a filtration system is only part of what is needed to improve air quality. In this article, you’ll learn about woodshop air filtration and reducing dust, its importance, and what’s needed to improve and maintain air quality while woodworking.
Why Air Filtration is Important for Woodshops
Air Filtration is important in woodshops because it removes airborne dust in a woodshop, which can lead to staining of surfaces. Exposure to wood dust can lead to asthma, chronic bronchitis, and hypersensitivity pneumonitis. In addition, contact with the irritant compounds in wood sap can cause dermatitis and other allergic reactions.
What Air Filtration Systems Are Needed?
Having proper air filtration in place can help remove airborne dust in woodshops. To address the air quality control issues that can occur in a woodshop, you’ll need to solutions:
- Dust Collection System
- Air Filtration System
Dust Collection Solutions
Dust control systems are designed to clear large wood particles, like wood chips, or shavings. There are both commercial and portable systems that can be helpful for air quality. However, dust collection systems do not address dust particles. In fact, many dust collection systems can make matters worse by letting particles of dust pass through the filter.
Air Filtration Solutions
Pairing an air filtration system with a dust collection solution will help to address fine dust in woodshops. Air filtration systems are outfitted with continuous duty motors and high surface-area filters that make them uniquely suited for cleansing shop air of fine dust particles.
Unfortunately, dust collection systems don’t often do a very good job with the most pernicious aspect of the dust control problem: fine dust particles. And many actually make matters worse by letting minute particles of dust pass through their filter.
How Much Air Filtration Is Needed for Woodshops?
Now that you know what is needed to address air quality issues in a woodshop, the next question to answer is how much is needed? That answer depends on how large your shop is. This is measured, the cubic feet – length, width, and ceiling height of the shop.
Step 1: Measure Volume of Air
For your industrial woodshop, start by finding the total volume of air in your shop. This can be done by measure the cubic feet in the space using the dimensions of the area: length, width, and height of the area (length x width x height).
Step 2: Measure the Number of Cycles
Multiply the air volume by the number of cycles per hour that you want to move the air through the filtration system. For the number of cycles per hour, use 6 for a one-person shop, otherwise use 8.
Step 3: Calculate Cubic Feet Per Minute
Divide the result by 60, which translates the time factor into minutes instead of hours.
Final Formula
Here is the final formula to calculate how much air filtration is needed for woodshops:
necessary air moving capacity (cfm) = volume x cycles / 60
Improve Air Filtration in Woodshops
If you want to ensure the air quality of your woodshop is at a healthy level, the New England Industrial Air Specialists at Nauset Engineering can help. Our team can help you find the best air filtration solutions to make sure your woodshop stays at healthy levels. Reach out to us today to get started.
