Thoughts on inexpensive dust collection

Customizing your dust collection system and keeping costs low. March 14, 2001

Q.
We need a dust collection system but want to get the best value. Any ideas for how to maximize dollars if I am willing to do some extra work?

Forum Responses
How big does your system need to be? We put in a system with used shaker bag house (84 bags) and a new backward inclined fan with 15hp that can be upped to 25 in the future. We had a steel tower built to back a trailer under, bought a 12" rotary valve, and had a 6600 cfm cyclone built locally. We bought new spiral ducts and fittings and installed all of it ourselves. The system works well. Keeping an efficient fan on the clean side means you can move more air for less electricity.

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I heard numbers of about $1 per cfm when I was looking at systems in the 20,000-40,000 cfm range. I would look for equipment dealers--they usually either have something or can tell you where to look. I just purchased two smaller CarterDay systems, about 10,000 cfm each and extended the cages and housings, changed the fans, and ended up with a combined total 34,000 cfm for about $.60 per cfm. It all comes down to how much you can do. I would stay away from new, because you will have to spend a lot of money to get what you want. The most important part is sizing the system correctly for your needs (present and future).