I’m new to Knots. My name is Dave Carter and I’m a retired college prof in Butte, Montana who likes to make things out of wood. Currently, I have a shop vac and a smaller vacuum cleaner to keep the worst of the dust in my garage shop in check. The house we live in has a built-in vacuum system that we’ve never used and it occurred to me that it might be possible to move the unit to my shop and rig it up as a built-in dust collection system. Has any of you done this? And if so, are there any sort of problems I might encounter?
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Replies
Welcome, Dave.
Your vacuum system is probably set up with 1-1/2" or 2" pipe. If you use it for collecting chips from a major producer, like a planer, it'll probably clog up both the pipe and/or the filter. If you check out DC websites, they usually give the recommended CFM and pipesize for the most common woodworking machines. I use a shop vac for some of the smaller machines in my shop, like the drum sander, router table, drill press, but it leaves a little to be desired. I spend way too much time emptying it and cleaning the filter. You could buy a small cyclone, like a Dust Deputy, for your vacuum, and it would probably work pretty well for small machines.
I have a shop-vac / Clearvue cyclone plumbed throughout my shop. One heck of a convenient way to keep things neat and clean. I also use the vac setup for sanding, drill press, and mortiser. I highly recommend it, especially if you don't like dragging a screaming vacuum cleaner around the shop while tripping over the hose....
-Jerry
noise....
BTW, last time I took my shop vac in for the annual motor replacement, the fella tried to sell me used central vacs they had "INHERETED" during upgrades.
100 bucks a pop for a used unit...think I coulda negotiated a tad on that, cause he sure seemed keen to get em out of the stock room.
Eric
Best to use a dust collector for dust collection. Besides the chip-clogging problem, you've got filters to consider and the fact that vacuums aren't designed for major CFM air movement. I don't know alot about the technical aspects of this, and a central vacuum system may move more air than a regular vacuum, but I'd lean toward using a machine designed for the job.
I have a central vac that we removed from the house. It is sitting in the shop, but I haven't tried it yet. I don't remember it moving much air or having much negative pressure. Look at the specs on your vac. My shop vac moves 135 CFM. A proper DC moves 1200 cfm.
Greg
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I think you meant to address your reply to the OP, VNgrunt. Hopefully, he'll see your post.
You guys are making me envious, I'd love to have a centra vac in our house, and here you are yankin' 'em out of yours, LOL!!!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
I've talked to a couple of folks who have them in their homes and what I hear from them is that moving a vacuum cleaner at the end of a wire is much easier than moving 20 feet of hose.
I strongly disagree. Having had both, let me assure you that the hose is a lot less heavy than the appliance.Cheers,Peter
Better life through Zoodles and poutine...
"...moving a vacuum cleaner at the end of a wire is much easier than moving 20 feet of hose." If the hose is 20 feet long, I could see it might be a pain. Probably depends on the design of the hose, too. I have a small-diameter vacuum hose picked up at a yard sale that's softish plastic and quite expansive length-wise when you pull on it, but draws up short when you let it go.
Our house is so small, a 12-foot hose would be plenty! ;-)forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Jamie,
My central shop-vac system is piped up from my basement shop to the "livin' quarters". The first advantage is that it will suck the shellac right off the floor. Second advantage: it's quiet. So, for quiet efficiency, I gladly deal with the hose!
-Jerry
You must also keep in mind that a central vac exhausts to the outdoors, not to the interior of the house. Much better health wise.
Better life through Zoodles and poutine...
I have lived with both, and I can say without hesitation the central vac. is great.
Gotta give the central vac another thumbs up, we also have had both and absolutely love it! Wouldn’t be without the central vac.
For the wood shop, probably use a larger hose with an adapter into a dust deputy before the vac and it will likely work. Compare the specs against a large shop vac and that will likely tell you if it has enough power.
I use a 5 gal shop vac on all tools except the planer which ejects it’s own chips outdoors or into a bin. Good luck!
Am I understanding correctly this is a home central vac system?
@forestgirl, I agree with you completely.
This is the first time I’ve ever heard if this, and immediately my common sense tells me there is a big difference in vacuuming a house and collecting sawdust in a ww’ing shop!
A mobile dust collector is not that costly.
Use the tool meant for the job!
We had a central vac in our first house and never used it much. A regular vacuum cleaner was easier to use and did a much better job of cleaning. However, neither is designed for use in a woodworking shop.
I have been using the house central vac for 5 years now in my basement shop. I have no large power tools in this shop, they are all out in the garage shop. My basement shop is my 'winter shop' for when it's too cold in the garage.
Our house central vac is a Nutone VX1000. Quick specs are 230 CFM and 130" water suction power. It has a cyclonic HEPA filteration system. it was not cheap, about $700 when I bought it a couple years ago to replace our 25 year old Nutone unit. It's mounted in the garage so all the noise is outside the house. When you are vaccuming all you hear is the woosh of the air, no motor noise. In the shop it's the same, you can run the vac and hold a conversation at a normal volume level. You don't need hearing protection for the vacuum noise, but you may of course for any tools you're using.
Anyway, I wanted to be able to control dust to prevent it making it's way throughout the house or making a mess in the corner of the basement that is the shop. I have a Festool CT36 that I use in the garage but didn't want to be lugging it up and down stairs. And given the price paid for the new central vac I didn't want to spend another couple hundred on another dust extractor.
Since the central vac line runs right overhead in the basement shop ceiling I bought the necessary fittings and an Oneida Ultimate Dust Deputy and hooked it all up. I did this by adding what is essentially a central vac outlet in my shop that I can plug the UDD into. I did this so I could disconnect the UDD and not have to worry about the house vac losing suction which it will if the UDD were left connected. So when I leave the shop I disconnect the UDD and the central vac system is but to normal. Now you may ask how did you adapt the UDD to the central vac outlet. Well it turns out that a PVC lav popup tailpiece fits in there just as snugly as the vacuum hose does.
The UDD is made to sit on top of a Festool dust extractor, but it works just fine sitting on the floor. A big plus for the UDD is you can place a trash bag inside and because of the equalizing pressure line they use the bag will not be sucked up by the vac, it stays put in the hopper.
Most central vacs use one of two methods of operating the vaccum. Either a connection at the hose port that will turn on the vac and it stays on unitl you remove the hose or there is a switch on the wand to operate the vac.
Neither of those options works well for WWing so I installed a manual switch next to the vacuum port.
Another issue is what happens when you dead-head a vacuum, especially a strong one like this. Well you can damage your piping is one worry. You can buy for less than $10 a relief valve. This is a spring loaded valve that will open automatically when the vac is clogged or otherwise flow has stopped. Once the blockage has been cleared it will close again. If you install it in the right placve it will work when the vac is used, in the shop or when vaccuming the house. I believe every cantral vac system should have one and if yours dosen't I suggest you think about adding one.
If anyone has questions I am monitoring this thread so post them here and I will respond ASAP.
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