How do I Compare Air Cleaners for Wood Dust?

Check your work area for excessive airborne wood dust. Look for dust collecting on equipment, clothes, face and hair and around the breathing zone of workers. If you can identify the source of the dust, you may be able to minimize the dust produced at its source, which will enable you to buy a less expensive air cleaner.

Confine your choices to dust collectors with HEPA filters. Electronic air cleaners, electrostatic filters and ion generators all remove less wood dust than a dust collector with a high quality filter.

Choose which of the three models of dust collectors you need. Dust collectors come in single-stage, two-stage and cyclone models. Single-stage collectors are less expensive than two-stage models, but they will not be sufficient to handle a major wood dust problem. Cyclone models are the most expensive and the most effective.

Compare the percentages of dust removed by the filter materials in all of the models you're considering. Top quality filters will remove up to 99.9 percent of dust from 0.2 to 2.0 microns, but other filters remove less. HEPA filters are far more effective than HEPA TYPE filters.

Compare the cross-sectional area of filter media versus air flow. The larger the area covered by the filter is, the more effective it will be at removing particulate matter. The lower the air flow, the more effective the filter will be. Even good filter media will not filter the air effectively if the air flow is too strong.

Check to see if the air filter uses a coating of dust on the inside. The dust will actually improve air filtration.