<h1>Shop Air Filters: How to Determine if You Need HEPA or Not</h1>

Particles, fibers and dust are a common everyday occurrence in workshops. And to keep working conditions safe, most business owners or shop managers will purchase a shop air filtration system of some kind. Often, however, the purchase is for a machine that isn’t exactly what they need, not suited to the size and volume of particles they are dealing with, or the properly sized to the space of the room–all of which increase costs unnecessarily and can leave a shop wide open for lawsuits from poor air quality injury. Truth is, you don’t always need a commercial HEPA purifier, but sometimes you do. Here’s how to determine what you need, save money and do a better job of keeping the air in your workshop cleaner and everyone safer:

 

First, determine all of the types of particles that are or could be present based on the operation of the shop, various materials being used, etc–make a list. Next, determine what sizes of the particles you’re dealing with: if it’s mainly large wood or other particles larger than 5-10 microns, chances are you don’t need HEPA; in fact you can save a lot by purchasing a dust collector that has a cleanable particle filter or bag filter rated for this size (which you can also clean). For reference, 5 microns is about like super fine ground coffee. A grain of beach sand can be as big as 100 microns. If you have dust or fibers that are super fine like baby powder, that’s about 1-5 microns–still don’t necessarily need HEPA, probably good with MERV-12 or so. If you have smoke, that’s a lot of airborne particles at about 7 microns, and sometimes a few under 1 micron, which is why you then would probably need a portable shop air filter with HEPA–because HEPA or MERV-16-17 grabs over 99% of those submicron particles as small as 0.3 microns.

 

If you have people coughing or sneezing but can’t see the dust on surfaces really or anything in the air, definitely need HEPA as those particle that are too small to see require HEPA to remove them. Finally, when selecting the right shop air filter, be certain to size the purifier to the square footage of the room and give yourself at least 4 clean air changes per hour for proper dust control. To calculate, simple multiply square footage by the ceiling height and divide by the CFM of the air cleaner. This will tell you how many minutes it takes to completely clean all of the air in the space at that CFM. If it takes 45 minutes to get 1 complete air change, you probably need 3 of the same air cleaner to get 4 clean air changes per hour, or a larger CFM unit.

 

At our online store we offer a wide range of top-rated industrial shop air filters to fit every job size, with the best discount prices and free shipping due to our extremely low overhead as an online store. Call our experts today with your questions at 800-701-2513. We are here to help!

Air Purifiers and Cleaners.com
LOW PRICES-FREE SHIPPING-EXPERT STAFF
http://www.airpurifiersandcleaners.com/dust-collection-filtration-systems
1-800-701-2513