Air cleaner in attic?

[chopnhack]

I have 8' ceilings in my garage and the thought of losing some overhead space to one of these gargantuan air filtration units is a bit much :-) Has anyone ever thought or actually put one of their's up in the attic? I ask because I have fairly good access and would be able to get up to it to change filters and what not. The loss of the remote feature would be a bummer..

I was thinking about mounting it in the attic and ducting the intake and exhaust down through the ceiling with their respective sized grilles.

What are your thoughts?

[dbhost]

Are you 7' tall?

I have one of the big Grizzly units, on 8' 6" ceilings and have mine mounted in a corner at around a 45 degree angle to get the air moving in a circular fashion.... I don't come anywhere near hitting it except for when I get up on a ladder. It is behind where any sheet goods would be... Careful placement is key!

Placing it in the attic would mean it would clean the attic air, not the shop air. Kind of kills the whole point doesn't it?

[chopnhack]

I guess your extra 6" in height makes a difference, I also have a ~8" ledge step down into the garage right around the area I was thinking about using so it really is a bit of a killer. The air cleaner would go in the attic, but the plan was to duct the air through the ceiling.

[dbhost]

Hmmm.

Not sure the exact ceiling height, BUT, my filter is exactly 7' off the floor to the bottom of the filter. I have the G0572 I have it mounted to 2x4s, and it's 15" high, so it's 8' 4.5" from the floor to the ceiling I guess... Not much more than yours, and most filters are not as tall as mine. The Delta that is on sale at Woodcraft is 12". so assuming you mount to the ceiling, say by using 3/4" plywood screwed into the studs, and you'd have 6' 11.25" clearance Mind you, at least Grizzly recommends mounting 7' off the floor, so you are right there...

[chopnhack]

The ceiling is 8', but like I said I have that ledge that take away at least 1/2' then these unit like you say take out an additional 1-1 1/2' so at best I am at 6.5'. I really don't like the idea of this huge box hanging down so low. If I can't find another way, it is what it is, but I want to try and brainstorm first to see if I can work around this. No, offense, they are just big boxes floating out there :-)

[dbhost]

Maybe a pic might help.

[LCHIEN]

should work OK with appropriate ducting, but I've got my Delta Air cleaner unit hung from the 8' rafters ceiling and it doesn't get in the way.

[chopnhack]

According to this sketch I have 1'2" above the doorway and as you can see the area surrounding it is encroached upon by the ac units to the right and upper storage to the left....

[mpc]

The ceiling mounted air filters work best when they can get the shop air moving in a circular pattern I believe. So your ducting would ideally be in the walls and/or have elbows to divert the airflow to along the ceiling. If the vents were just flush mounted to the ceiling the effectiveness of the filter would be greatly reduced I believe. One area directly below the intake might stay clean... and whatever was directly below the exhaust would get blasted clean but everywhere else probably would be worse than no filter at all. And the ducting itself would lessen the total airflow of the filter unit, just like excessive pipe length hurts dust collector performance.

Just tucking the overhead filter into a corner ought to be decent - especially if you can mount it at a 45 degree angle to the corner as dbhost described. Looking at your diagram, it seems like above and maybe a little forward (to the left in your pic) of the miter saw would be reasonable - aiming the intake towards the cabinets and workbench on that wall. I mounted my Rikon to 2x4s in an open garage ceiling truss... I think though I should reverse the intake/exhaust directions. I thought having the intake in the general direction of my dust collector would be smart - i.e. suck up anything that gets through the bags... but that aims the Rikon's exhaust at the back of my head when I'm using the workbench that's against the wall. So it stirs up whatever loose stuff is on the bench. Next time I can borrow a strong friend of mine to help, I'm going to flip mine around and see if the workbench area stays cleaner.

mpc

ps: your lumber storage area looks fairly similar to mine! My sheet storage bin doesn't come to a full triangle point like yours; I left about 1 foot of height on that end and 3 feet on the other when I diagonally cut the plywood. I used 2x10s for the bottom and skinny vertical wall for extra strength. And I have only 2 shelves, not 3, above the sheet goods rack. I added a series of "studs" vertically though - screwed into the real wall studs behind the drywall - to support everything. So I have vertical pockets between these new studs to stack flat boards and/or skinny sticks. Small chains hold everything in.

[chopnhack]

Ah! Well thought out MPC :-) Excellent analysis many thanks

The sketch is an old rendering and I ended up building a different plywood cart:
http://www.bt3central.com/showthread.php?t=54965

But otherwise the lumber rack is the same, how do you like yours? Have you rearranged your shelving any? I am currently using my lower shelf as a catch all and most of my tools are on that shelf as I start on the tool wall construction.

I really like the idea, it had never dawned on me to relegate the unit to the far corner of the shop... I wonder how far off the wall would be necessary to facilitate the circular flow. The last unit I looked at was ~30" long. I will try and render something tonight to show some of the obstructions in that area.

[LarryG]

The ceiling mounted air filters work best when they can get the shop air moving in a circular pattern I believe.

+1. Putting the cleaner in the attic and directing the airflow to it with ducts containing elbows will impair the unit's effectiveness, possibly to the point of it almost not being worth having.

Many people hang their cleaners out in the middle of the room, and that's where I was originally planning to put mine, but the best information I've been able to find suggests that the optimal location is a couple feet off one of the shop's two long walls, at roughly the 1/3 - 2/3 point between the corners. This placement helps promote a circular airflow around the shop's perimeter, so more dust-laden air will be carried to the filter. Ideally, the biggest dust producers in the shop will be located in the same part of the shop as the filter.

[dbhost]

According to this sketch I have 1'2" above the doorway and as you can see the area surrounding it is encroached upon by the ac units to the right and upper storage to the left....

I still fail to see the problem... Unless of course you want to mount it right up against the wall or something like that, directly over the stoop. I have one of thsoe stoops as well, although mine is only 2" tall instead of 6"... Take a look at my workshop page on LJs and see where my filter is mounted. If you go with one of the smaller models, not CFM but just case height I mean, you should have no problems at all with that being up there. Maybe I am totally misunderstanding your concern here, I just don't see a problem... It actually looks spot on to me.

FWIW, mine is mounted 4' in from the front wall, and 4' in from the left wall, at an approximately 30 degree angle (I didn't measure with any precision, didn't feel I needed to...). Like I said, I have ~7' clearance, with only an 8'6" ceiling. Haven't bumped it yet...

[sweensdv]

Why not use the same kind of setup you have for your lumber rack? Just make a wall mounted shelf and set the air cleaner on it. That way, you can position it so that it's high enough that it won't be in the way. That's what I did with mine and it worked out great.

[dbhost]

Okay so they aren't the best pics... But you can see that I mounted mine toward the corner, but not IN the corner. This rig gives me ~7' of clearance before I get to the filter. Yes it is close to the lumber rack, but I have no interference problems, not even when I get up on a ladder... It's just not in the way where I put it. Mind you, I don't know what your shop layout is, but this rig works well for me... It's pretty much above my work bench, just behind the table saw outfeed... Take a look at my video that I posted in my workshop page over at the other site as well.

Not trying to talk you into doing something you don't want to do mind you, but I honestly think that the overhead clearance isn't that big of an issue. I was tremendously concerned about it when I bought my Grizzly because I knew it was bigger than most, but I was willing to mount mine on the wall if ceiling didn't work for me. I have found that where I have it mounted is just about ideal in my shop configuration...

Lay out your shop a bit more fully in Sketchup, make a sketchup model of the unit you want, just needs to be size correct, don't fuss with the details, and go to figuring out a mounting point... The mfgs suggest an ideal height is 7' from the ground to the bottom of the machine... I tend to agree with them from my experiences. What you are wanting to do is get the air moving in a circular fashion, with your air intake just after the worst dust producer in your shop. To get things going around in a circle, mounting at an angle really helps...

[JR]

I think the attic idea has merit. Sure, the ducting required to do it will cause some loss of flow. But hobbyist shops are full of compromises. The dust would still get filtered, albeit at a rate somewhat less than optimum.

A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. It's your shop. Do what makes you happy.

JR