Shop vacs & toxicity?

       If you don't have a vacuum setup, my cheapo solution
would be a shopvac hose ..... 

What a great idea that was.

Hi,

The suggestion of using a shop vac for collection of toxic
airborne materials is NOT SAFE!!!

The shop vac will pick up the particles and it will concentrate
them in the barrel and the exhaust air leaving the vac will
contain the smallest and most dangerous particles of the toxic
material…

Just the cleaning of a work bench that has had toxic material
used on it is not a good safety practice. All of the particles are
smaller than the filtering ability best filter bags for vacs…
ALWAYS VENT TO OUTSIDE AIR.

The shop vac used to filter will continue to disperse the
collected fine particles until the bag is changed and the unit
thoroughly cleaned…

When venting to outside air one must also KNOW where the
particulate is going to flow… will it collect and concentrate
under the window or opening you are using… do your kids,
pets, wild birds, etc have access to the area? Will a water
source be impacted?

There are many elements to designing a safe ventilation system.

With this age of instant communications we have access to really
good safety info … and environmental concerns as well.

What a great place Orchid is to bounce around ideas and see what
arises.

All the best,

Bill

Mystic Merchant –http://www.concentric.net/~lightone/
– Bill Mason-- Gem Stones, Diamonds,Crystals-- Eclectic Jewelry & Lapidary
10550 Fox Ridge Rd.-- Semmes, Alabama 36575 USA PH# 334-645-9081

    The suggestion of using a shop vac for collection of toxic
airborne materials is NOT SAFE!!!!! 

Whoops. Didn’t think that all the way through, did I? Mea culpa.
I should know better. When I’ve used the household vac in the
past to clean up the remnants of the kitty litter off the floor,
I know it throws particulates without the filter bag. The
standard ShopVac setup has a sponge filter around the air intake
motor (?) and a paper filter around that. I’ve started using
another filter bag that ShopVac has put out on the market, and
that seems to cut out most of the problem.

OTOH, were we talking about “Toxic” in relation to abalone
shell, or something chemically toxic (e.g. volatile gases)?

Time to re-read the archive on filtering and ventilation systems
again (Feb or March of this year, wasn’t it?)

kat