Hey community,
I’m wondering what (extra) steps I should take if I do some woodworking where I sleep.
I live in a one bedroom apartment, but I sleep in the living room so I can use the bedroom as tool / lumbar storage and work space for other craft projects.
I recently picked up a drill press for a large-scale project. For noise reasons, I’m considering putting the press in the main room and working there. I won’t be doing any other sanding, sawing, etc..
I bought a Festool HEPA dust extractor that I’ll attach to the press to catch large chips and dust at the source. I also picked up the ol box fan & filter (13 merv) set up.
Is this a terrible idea regardless? Is future me gonna be mad? If not, are there any other steps I can take to increase air quality/safety?
thanks!
Replies
This is a difficult question - I have answered it from a medical perspective, but you should not consider this to be personal medical advice, rather a social media post for entertainment purposes only.
The medical evidence is not conclusive on this - there is no evidence of wood dust causing chronic respiratory illness, though it can cause acute illness or exacerbate existing respiratory disease.
Wood dust is thought to be carcinogenic, but the evidence is weak. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26191795/
Some nasal cancers (which are very rare - so rare that I have never seen a case in almost 30 years of medical practice) are probably more common with wood dust exposure, and some lung cancers may be though it is highly probable that it is only a problem in smokers given this being the case for almost all respiratory carcinogens (asbestos for instance is about 40 times more carcinogenic in smokers than in non-smokers)
Some woods are worse than others and a few are toxic even by inhalation. You certainly should not be working uncommon or known toxic woods in this circumstance - Walnut, pine, poplar, cherry, maple, mahogany are all low risk woods. https://naw.org.nz/resourcesnew/toxic-wood/ gives a list of common wood species and a lot of less common ones with known risks mentioned.
A few people develop allergies which may limit their ability to do future woodwork, but this is likely to occur regardless of the dust exposure level. Even tiny traces of dust can trigger immune reactions in susceptible individuals.
Drill presses do not generate much dust unless you are using them for sanding. I think your plan will reduce dust well, especially if you build a sensible housing under the table to collect the dust and draw it downwards.
Having the window open and keeping the room sparsely furnished will also help. Cover your bed with a drop sheet to ensure your sleep area is dust free and the risk will be small.
You run about a 1 in 5 million risk of death with every single car journey you take. Is that worth it? Most people would say it is. It is impossible to quantify the risk you face from dust exposure in the workshop, but it is probably down at less than the risk you face driving. This is concordant with the experience we all have - if wood dust was a high risk, we would all know someone who had died as a result.
As with all risks you take, you have to decide whether the benefits are worth it.
"...... are there any other steps I can take to increase air quality/safety? "
Risks from wood dust to your health are not that easy to judge in that many of the effects of dust on your health are probably subtle and very hard to distinguish from the effects of numerous other factors impinging on your health. But, as Rob_SS points out, the overall statistical risk is low.
What you need to be aware of is that such generalised risk assessments - such as the one in five million car journey risks - are "the big picture". At the individual level, some drivers (for example) are far more likely to have an accident than are others - because of their personal behaviours and inner workings that give rise to them; and because of their personal context (more or less traffic, type of car driven, local attitudes to driving, etc.).
So, precautions are wise, even if the risk seems low. For you it might not be low because you are somewhere other than the main part of the bell curve for those kind of risk susceptibilities.
In addition, the issue of dust in a living environment is greater than in a dedicated workshop, as the stuff can be damaging to various things like electronics or even mechanical devices, if allowed to build up. It might also increase your various cleaning expenses (three times the amount of electricity and washing powder costs to clean up your clothes and the apartment more often, for example).
Dust from woodworking is more pervasive than many realise. For example, it's often opined that hand tool work creates no dust. Obviously not true of hand sanding ... but not really true for planing and other hand tool operations either - although the amounts produced are small; and often hard to see.
The best measure of how much dust you produce uncaptured is the finger wipe test of various surfaces, both horizontal and vertical. This makes evident that fine dust you may be producing but not seeing (or capturing). The fine stuff is probably the more dangerous to health as it can lodge in your lung alveoli in a semi-permanent way, compromising your breathing and (with the more toxic stuff) possibly doing other damage.
Personally I've developed three main tactics in the dust-dealing strategy.
* Collect as much as possible right near the source. You seem to be well on to that one. There is a compromise to make between the amount of extractor suck, the fineness of the filters used and the noise generated. Very fine filters can soon clog and reduce airflow. On the other hand, fine dust partially blocking a filter can actually increase it's ability to stop the very finest stuff escaping the filter. If the extractor is very noisy, you'll be tempted not to use it.
* Maintain a fast airflow through the workshop. Treat the workshop itself as a tool that generates dust and needs an extractor. I have a fan arrangement that draws air from the house, through the garage workshop and out of the one-way grills at the other end of the shop from the fan to the outside. This heats the workshop in cold weather too, although at the cost of burning more energy to heat the house that the fan draws air from. (Happily it's free energy from ground source heating and solar panel electricity). In hot weather, the fan acts also as a crude air conditioner for the whole house, drawing fresh air from outside into the house, through the workshop and out again.
* Use auto-on and off switching with your dust extractors. Connect via a sensor thingy so that when you switch a tool on, it also switches on the extractor, switching both off when you switch the tool off. (Your Festool has one built-in). It's easy to forget to use the extractor but one session with a table saw or sander and no suck can generate a lot of dust flung into the workshop in no time.
Lataxe
I think your biggest safety risk, by far, is going to come from those in the apartments around yours.
On the other hand, you have nothing to fear from any potential girlfriend. Not until you invite one home, anyway.
How is your apartment heating/cooling set up? If its forced air, recirculating air through vents and returns. Any fine dust will get distributed throughout your apartment, not just staying in that room.
Rob_SS gave some excellent advice. The only things I can think to add
1. Traditional hand tools tend to produce less fine dust and the smaller dust (2 to 5 microns) is more problematic.
2. Avoid using sand paper. It produces lots of dust. If you use a hand plane, there really is no need to sand after that.
3. There are some good air purifiers out there. Find the kind that are used for cigar smokers. They also have HEPA filters which should help remove the fine dust.
4. Do you have a balcony where you can work on?
Have you considered and air cleaner? hung one from the ceiling of my attached garage shop to keep dust from migrating to the house. It worked wonders. Way better than the box fan and filter. Most have multiple speed and timers so you can let them run after you are done working to turn the air in your apartment several times.
BTW - If noise is your only concern, put the drill press in the shop. They aren't that loud. The average TV is louder than most presses.
Noise, dust, and odors from finishes would be the biggest concerns in your situation.
For your own personal wellbeing, you need to be concerned about dust, even though you have an excellent dust extractor there - good investment.
To add to the excellent post by Rob_SS, I would caution you against assuming any kind of wood is ok. Exposure to aerosolized formaldehydes and glue residues found in MDF, particle board, certain foreign made plywood, etc is definitely a health risk. I strongly suggest you keep them out of your apartment altogether.
I do know there are certain wood species that can cause allergies. For example, I discovered a persistent rash on my stomach that I actually wondered might be bed bugs, as I would go to bed fine & wake up in the morning quite itchy, always across the lower torso. I discovered it was poplar plywood I was working with, the dust and tiny splinters kicking back from the saw, getting in my shirt was the cause.
I am not allergic to poplar lumber, so I feel it was the glue (foreign made ply).
I also know that cedar and walnut can cause certain people problems.
If you live in the State of California the new drill press will give you cancer faster than the dust. :-)
I just . . . the guy lives in an apartment. A lot of these replies would be good advice for someone setting up a commercial shop.
It's an apartment.
Or you could just worry yourself to death. Think of all the time and money you'd save and worry doesn't require a filter.
Guys! These are all super helpful and especially shout out to Rob_SS and Lat_axe — blow alway (pun?) by the thorough responses it’s incredibly helpful.
Got me thinking and the reason I’m setting up the press in my apt is bc my community shop has two beat up Harbor Freight presses that don’t meet my speed or precision needs. That shop has *no* air purification in place OR cross ventilation. Some mornings i can see the dust still sitting in the air. Without buying a $300 air quality reader I’ll bet my home set you will be better for me than the usual hours I spend there...I think.
My apt has a wall unit AC in each room. I’ll keep the windows closed only while I drill bc I want noise reduction / happy neighbors. Then I’ll have good cross ventilation with windows open. And John_C2, girls are typically more concerned with the closed-door room where I keep saws and tools and sometimes there’s a tarp on the floor. WHICH IS FAIR.
I’ll only drill walnut and maple. I’ll using something else besides mdf under my wood when I drill tho, that’s a good call on that dust.
I picked up a low-angle block plane to go with my #5 bench plane to handle rounding and shaping, tho I’m not sold on excluding sanding, which I can do outside. I’ll make Shellac for the finish and apply it in my other room.
Long and short of it, with a sane amount of effort and sense I think this is a go! Nice!!
Worrying is known to cause cancer in the state of California.
True true, so does the ash that’s raining down from the sky it really is a state of opportunity
Yes, it's a terrible idea.
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