Air cleaner in attic?

[chopnhack]

Attaboy JR, there's the spirit! I am not headstrong but would like to develop the idea further. If I have to buy the ready made unit, well ok, shop space is always limited, what's one more overhead restriction ;P on the other hand if I am able to find a blower motor that gets the necessary cfm at whatever static pressure loss will occur - well, then I get to do something unique... I like the path least traveled if you haven't noticed.

[unclecritic]

I dont know if it helps much, but i built my own aircleaner from a salvaged furnace blower. The box i built was just a simple plywood box that i placed into the attic of my old garage shop. The intake ductwork was built out of painted osb (smooth side in) and i had 2 filter locations at the ceiling, one in each back corner. Each opening was 12"x12" and was built with a 2" space so i could stack a coarse poly filter before a finer pleated filter. The exhasut air was blown across the attic in 10x16 duct and turned down and ran down the wall and behind my miter saw and turned out to blow towards my feet, all in ductwork i dug out of a dumpster. I hope that all makes sense. It worked really well as the blower wasnt a belt drive but a little more modern direct drive multi speed and i ran a 3 conductor wire to a switch on the wall and was able to just flip a switch and it would run on high or low. A fan timer and a relay and i could also run it on medium speed for 30 minutes after i left or ran to the store or something. I was really happy with it. Especially in the winter as it helped push some of the precious heat around without blowing it on my head

[chopnhack]

So it has been done before! I thought I had an original thought here, good for you unclecritic very ingenious of you. From what you wrote, it sounds like you have a 3 speed motor, that was a good find. You write in the past tense, was this in an old shop or have you scrapped it?

[unclecritic]

It was a past shop. It was in a garage of a buddies rental house. I had free rent and electric and it was only about a mile away from my house. I just had to do "maintenance" on the rental house. It was rented to college kids.... yeah i was always fixing stuff lol. But with kids at home and both the girlfriend and i work full time... you know how the story goes... plus the house was in a questionable area and i was always worried it was going to get broken into. So ive spent the last year trying to get everything to fit and be usable in my basement. Its been a long road but im almost there...

As far as finding the blower and motor, i do HVAC so i pretty much have a constant supply of weird controls and used motors and what nots... i actually have many boxes and buckets and a shed full of what nots... A lot of the mechanical contractors in my area just take a furnace they are replacing to the scrapyard. Most of the scrapyards around here will sell stuff to the public by weight so depending on your location and how things are handled you might be able to get one that way. The one i used was WAAAAYYYY too big as it was a blower from a air handler for a 5 ton air conditioner. I never tried it on its high speed because i didnt like the thought of blowing my ductwork apart and having to go fix it. It was actually a 4 speed blower but i only used the lower 3.

Ive reverted to a smaller unit in my basment that draws its air from right above my miter saw and its pulling thru 3 stacked filters and then i boxed in the joist space above it all the way across the basement to where it blows down against the far wall thru another filter, creating a circle pattern. Seems to work pretty well. The flooring above that joist space that effectively creates the top of the ductwork is old tongue and groove, with a layer of tarpaper and then underlayment and laminte flooring so im not too worried about dust infiltration there. Even after changing the 3 stacked filters a few times ive never even had to clean the post filter. Ive taken a peek in the "duct" and i dont see any evidence of dust getting past the first 3 filters and this is after a few MDF sessions and numerous other projects.

If you do end up doing something like this, i would recommend pricing filters before you build a filter frame or frames. The more common the filter, typically the less expensive they are as you can buy them in bulk.

[chopnhack]

Thanks for the info Unc!

[unclecritic]

No problem. My description was a little long winded

[pelligrini]

Chopnhack, do you have an attic stair in the garage? One might make it easier to mess with an aircleaner in the attic, and also give you easy access to more storage area.

[chopnhack]

I have a ~2x3 access hole and of course either of my trusty ladders :-) Nothing but dead space up there and in some areas about 2 1/2" of height unlike when I had to crawl to the corner to run wire down metal conduit - 4" of head room - face down in insulation...

Not looking forward to working in the attic, but this idea has my head turning some wheels and I am going to pursue it for awhile.