# Air filtration



## tacodan (Nov 19, 2008)

Any thoughts, or recommendations on air filtration? My garage-shop is about 4,000 sq.ft. The only one I have looked at is the JDS Air-tech 2000 sold by woodcraft. I currently can not afford a real dust collection system, so I use a shop vac connected to whatever I'm using. Looking to get the really fine stuff that hands in the air. Thanks a heap! Taco Dan.


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## dbhost (Jul 20, 2009)

You can afford a 4K square foot garage, and can't afford a dust collector? WOW…

Harbor Freight 2HP dust collector $139.00 on coupon. Harbor Freight dust collection accessory kit with hose, splitter, blast gates, dust hoods $44.99. Shaker Felt 1 micron filter bag, $30.00 @ Highland Woodworking. Fab up a Thien baffle to go in the inlet ring, and you will have a nice, effective, and cheap dust collector…

Overhead air filtration should THEN be addressed. Most ambient filters are rated to handle about 2K square feet. You have twice that. I would suggest if you can find them, dig up a couple of used, squirrel cage blowers and build your filters using 3M Filtrete filters, of increasing MERV ratings. (2 stage minimum, 3 is better…)


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## ClayandNancy (Feb 22, 2010)

You can build your own out of a box fan and a couple of furnace filters, cheapest way so so performance. Shopnotes has a plan for a filter that works pretty good, can't remember which issue but it shouldn't be hard to find.


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## dbhost (Jul 20, 2009)

FWIW, I did the furnace filter and box fan thing. I still use it for pulling missed dust away from me when working at the bench with sanders. (and that's not much dust that gets away!) Performance was so so at best. The overhead filter plans are in "The Complete Small Shop" special publication from Shop Notes.


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## PurpLev (May 30, 2008)

4000sqft…... impressive. I am actually not sure if the JDS2000 can even handle that size of a shop.

aside from that - the air filteration units are supposed to be an added step to an existing dust collection infrastructure, not THE infrastructure itself - it'll get clogged up way too often making it useless. Not only that - in order for it to catch everything - it means that all the fine particles need to travel from your machines to the unit - bypassing you in the middle, so you'd be breathing all of it anyways.

I'd invest in a good DC before any air filtration unit. if your low on $$$ - the HF 2HP unit has been getting rave reviews. may not be the news you're looking to get, but sometimes that's how it is.

good luck, and keep your health.


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## Manitario (Jul 4, 2010)

as already commented; an air filtration unit won't save your lungs or appreciably improve air quality in your shop without a DC unit. They are not designed to handle the dust loads produced by machines that are not connected to a DC. FWW recently had an article detailing this. As well, for a 4000 sqft shop with 8ft ceilings you'll need at minimum 3000 CFM of air filtration in order to do the recommended 6 air exchanges/hour in your shop. JDS does have a high end air filtration unit that moves 2100 CFM but it is $1300 and still wouldn't move enough air for your shop size. Therefore you are looking at needing several filtration units, which as I said, still won't be enough to protect your lungs without a DC unit.


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## PaulJerome (Feb 4, 2010)

I too, work out of my garage. You can get the HF dust collector for less than the air filtration system and IMO this would be the place to start along with the fan and filter suggestions above. BTW, I own the HF 2HP and it does a great job and I was very skeptical.


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## Viking (Aug 26, 2009)

Agree with dbhost above on the HF Dust Collector, but recommend you look at the Wynn cartridge filter over a bag. The cartridge filter will give you sub 1 micron filtering significantly more surface area which results in increased velocity. The trash can pre-separator will catch the majority of what goes into your system.

There are 20% off HF coupons in most WW magazines and several others.

If you build a dust filter from squirrel cage furtnace fans, build at least 2 for the amount of space in your shop. Mount them high and oriented to create an air flow circulation around your shop. Each one's exhaust will push air towards the other.

Good luck to you and your lungs!


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