Hardwood Floors April May 2018

AT THE SITE

Four Simple Rules for Containing Sanding Dust (Continued)

2. Use vacuums with HEPA filtration Full-unit HEPA Certi cation is essential for many contractors, especially for those re nishing older buildings with lead paint and varnishes, lest they run the risk of heavy nes for not meeting the Environmental Protection Agency’s RRP requirements 1 . But even if you’re not concerned with nes, full-unit HEPA vacuums are still an e cient way to ensure no harmful dust escapes from the vacuum. Uncerti ed HEPA vacuums, can’t guarantee top ltration e ciency and will o en leave you cleaning up (or worse, breathing in) the nest dusts over and over again. 3. Understand the hazards of dust When it comes to health hazards, the smallest dusts are the most harmful. Airborne particles smaller than 10 microns (known as the PM- 10 range) can work their way deep into your lung tissue and will likely never leave. To put that size in perspective, consider that a human hair is about 100 microns thick, while airborne dust particles smaller than 20 microns are invisible to the naked eye. Not only can this dust contribute to various infections and asthmatic conditions, many types of wood dusts (e.g., oak, beech, redwood, etc.) have been shown to be carcinogenic 2 . Cloth bag ltration performance peaks at the 1-micron range. So even though it may be lling up with dust while you work, it may blow the worst dusts back into the air. As the bag lls, the total lter surface area shrinks, meaning that more and more dust is pushed out of the bag and back into the air, which is why it is recommended to empty the bag when it’s one third of the way lled. 4. Ensure proper airflow to the tools When it comes to dust containment, you’ll o en hear that a sander needs “200 CFM” to collect all of the dust it generates – but there’s more to it than just picking a vacuumwith a high CFM rating. Just by doing its job, every sander blows dust away from the belt, meaning it’s already generating its own air ow pressure system. at means that any vacuum a ached to the sander is going to be competing with the sander’s air ow. is situation is worsened by the long lengths of hoses needed in oor sanding, as the longer the hose, the more air resistance the vacuum has to overcome. One way to eliminate this choke point is to relieve air pressure at the sander with a two-stage system that can separate most of the dust from the air, exhausting the excess air ow created by the sander, while transporting

the remaining, dust-laden air to the vacuum for nal containment. Once the sander can “breathe,” both it and the vacuum can perform as intended. e last time we had wood oors re nished in our home; we erected a vented plastic room around the area being sanded. It consumed an enormous amount of time and was ultimately ine ective; the crew spent as much time cleaning the oor as they did sanding it. With innovations in today’s dust containment technology, the methods we have to contain the dust we create almost seem limitless. A clear understanding of the wood dust that you work with along with an understanding of the di erent ways to contain it will ultimately allow you to be a be er business person in this trade, add value to your business, and o er your customers a clean and healthy environment.

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Mike Ledda is Marketing & Web Developer for Oneida Air Systems. He can be reached at mledda@oneida-air. com or 800.732.4065. Sources: 1. Lead; Renovation, Repair, and Painting Program; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, April 22, 2008, www.gpo. gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2008-04-22/html/E8-8141.htm 2. RoC Pro le: Wood Dust; Report on Carcinogens, Fourteenth Edition. National Toxicology Program, Department of Health and Human Services, Nov. 3, 2016, h p://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ ntp/roc/content/pro les/wooddust.pdf

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