Word of warning - Dust Collection Requirements for Businesses

This probably doesn't apply to a lot of folks, but I thought I would share some things that have been happening to me lately. Recently I went from home shop to "the real deal" woodworking business. I leased a space, advertised, etc... One thing I didn't realize was the potential expense of local requirements for dust collection. I fully expected to spend a good bit of money on electrical/rent/insurance/overhead, etc... , but dust collection came as a bit of a surprise. A few weeks ago I had an inspector stop by and tell me that I had a lot of work to do to meet the city's requirements. Just thought is was worth letting y'all know that if you're moving shop from one location to another, or going "full time" for the first time that you might want to do a bit of research about what your municipality requires for dust collection. Evidently there is a big push to enforce the NFPA 664 standard, even though small shops don't always seem to fall under it. (But cities can require you to do what they see fit.) Currently I have to invest a huge chunk of money into a professionally installed DC system in order to keep my doors open. Just thought y'all might want to know!

- Hutch

and who said the country wasnt a good place to live

Seriously, wishing I was livin' the country life.

I'm from the government and I'm here to help you.

Oof. That's gotta hurt. Well, Here's hoping you get through it. You sure have the skills to make a go of it.

Frank McKinney said:

I'm from the government and I'm here to help you.

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Said no man ever

Matt I feel your pain. Had the same troubles when we where hanging steel. Every year they seem to come out with new rules that meant I had to lay out big coin to stay in business. I think they must sit around ever year and look over the small business and say well that new rule last year didn't close them down so lets see if this requirement shuts there doors.

I'd be interested to know what your quotes come out to Matt. Like Brent said, if anyone has the skills to survive that, you've got them.

Chuck, my wife's uncle does steel erection, he did really well for a non-union shop, but he had the opportunity to move to the union side and did, even signed the business over to his wife as 51% owner. Now he can charge the government the same extortion fees they were charging him to balance things out.

Sorry for your undeserved troubles Hutch. I'm just curious; is it a requirement to have the system professionally installed? I know you have more important things to do than hang duct but, I was wondering about the requirement. Thx.

Darren Wright said:

I'd be interested to know what your quotes come out to Matt. Like Brent said, if anyone has the skills to survive that, you've got them.

Chuck, my wife's uncle does steel erection, he did really well for a non-union shop, but he had the opportunity to move to the union side and did, even signed the business over to his wife as 51% owner. Now he can charge the government the same extortion fees they were charging him to balance things out.

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Funny how that works had a friend/completer that went union and it crushed his erection business. In order to get work he still had to bid the same price I was but in order to cover the union fees he needed to charge 25 to 50% more than everyone else. Plus pay his help more money so they could take home less.

Chuck Thoits said:

Funny how that works had a friend/completer that went union and it crushed his erection business. In order to get work he still had to bid the same price I was but in order to cover the union fees he needed to charge 25 to 50% more than everyone else. Plus pay his help more money so they could take home less.

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I think between the types of jobs he's bidding (mostly union only) and the fact it's a WBA (Women's Business Entity) he still gets more than he was as a non-union. I don't doubt that it could have hurt him too.

Matt, looking through some of the NFPA 664 standards, it looks like they've at least declared what smaller shops can alternatively do to meet the requirements (under 5,000 cfm); however, it looks like type of dust created and even the building layout (dust collection location from egress) would be a big factor in costs and what is needed to still meet the requirements. Would say outsourcing your final finishing work to another shop that is setup for dust and even chemical finishing (spray booths, sanding, etc.) be considered to save some initial costs?

Larry, I think being in the country has it's advantages, but more and more counties are even getting nosy when it comes to meeting regulations (depending on the size and types of businesses in the county), but even at that, OSHA will pay a visit if someone asks them to.

Darren Wright said:

I think between the types of jobs he's bidding (mostly union only) and the fact it's a WBA (Women's Business Entity) he still gets more than he was as a non-union. I don't doubt that it could have hurt him too.

Matt, looking through some of the NFPA 664 standards, it looks like they've at least declared what smaller shops can alternatively do to meet the requirements (under 5,000 cfm); however, it looks like type of dust created and even the building layout (dust collection location from egress) would be a big factor in costs and what is needed to still meet the requirements. Would say outsourcing your final finishing work to another shop that is setup for dust and even chemical finishing (spray booths, sanding, etc.) be considered to save some initial costs?

Larry, I think being in the country has it's advantages, but more and more counties are even getting nosy when it comes to meeting regulations (depending on the size and types of businesses in the county), but even at that, OSHA will pay a visit if someone asks them to.

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The 5,000 sq ft exemption for "enclosureless collectors" appeared to have some fairly strong limitations, the wording I saw was "The collector will not be extracting from wide-belt sanders or other machinery with a mechanical feed." so I guess technically a shaper with a power feed would throw that out the door.

http://www.wmma.org/wood-industry-resources/documents/NFPA664requirements.pdf had what appears to be a good overview (at least it was the shortest one I could find that I mostly understood ).

It sure does look like it could add up in a hurry. For a small shop even meeting some of the egress separation requirements at all could be a bit on the challenging side just because of shop size. The paperwork looks pretty heavy duty as well. There were a few things I didn't fully understand (or maybe having worked for some gvmnt contractors I'm overly paranoid..) but for example the "hot work"section looked pretty rough, you're supposed to have fully cleared an area 35' in all directions from anything spark generating, which from my reading would imply that if your lathe tool sharpening rig generated sparks you'd have to do it 35+' from the lathe cause there ain't no way you're going to clear all of the chips there everytime you need to sharpen - that could get... tedious. There is probably some way around that... I'd hope.

if we want to kill ourselves in our small shops the govt should let us, just like they let the smokers kill themselves and harm everyone else around them.
I don't have a single thing against smokers, its their business, I can move out of the way.

Yes, there some pretty tough standards recommended in the NFPA 664. It's kinda ironic that a 4000 sq. ft. shop might have a lower cost for their DC than a shop like mine at 1400 sq. ft. due to the rules about enclosureless units. However, I think my contractor has made a good argument to the inspector that will allow my business to be considered "exempt" from the full stricture of NFPA 664.

Darren - Right now things are still in the works regarding whether or not the "cheap" plan will be approved, but I will definitely be spending at least $6500 to $11,000. If this initial plan isn't accepted, and my DC contractor isn't able to persuade them to accept it, it would cost me $20,000-25,000. I would have to move my shop at that point.

- Hutch

Matt Hutchinson said:

Yes, there some pretty tough standards recommended in the NFPA 664. It's kinda ironic that a 4000 sq. ft. shop might have a lower cost for their DC than a shop like mine at 1400 sq. ft. due to the rules about enclosureless units. However, I think my contractor has made a good argument to the inspector that will allow my business to be considered "exempt" from the full stricture of NFPA 664.

Darren - Right now things are still in the works regarding whether or not the "cheap" plan will be approved, but I will definitely be spending at least $6500 to $11,000. If this initial plan isn't accepted, and my DC contractor isn't able to persuade them to accept it, it would cost me $20,000-25,000. I would have to move my shop at that point.

- Hutch

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Welp that would suck if you have to move again. Once you get it all figured out I thing a lot of us are watching with interest to see what you end up having to do. Either way we're all pulling for ya so here's hoping for the best!!

Matt Hutchinson said:

.........I would have to move my shop at that point.

- Hutch

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...and you don't have the option of moving to China do you.... but I'm sure you can understand why so many do.

The stories I hear from friends in the US trying to run businesses under the ever increasing regulations are staggering.

A guy running a restaurant had to pay his employees a full hours wage to explain to them all how to wash their hands, and that the soap they used to wash things was not to be consumed etc etc. Every time he hired a new person, he had to spend an hour explaining all this kind of stuff, ridiculous.

Hutch, I really hope you get your exemption, the fact that you have to spend all of this time dealing with this stuff instead of trying to run your business and make some money to feed your family.

The 35' for hot work is a standard requirement for OSHA to clear combustible materials. To the best of my knowledge osha requires following a NFPA regulation. I deal with that every day at work unfortunately. Chips really wouldn't be combustible, but I couldn't tell you at what size dust they would start considering it combustible. Flour for instance definitely would be.

You have some options, making a room for hot work with ventilation if needed, moving the grinder outside if that's the only thing you are doing with it. There are also some rules for a designated hot work area under the NFPA rules for hot work, which doesnt have to follow as strict of guidelines. I suggest you look up the whole hotwork regulation as that is just a quick overview for that aspect. Where I work all our maintenance areas are more than 35' from combustibles so I never had to look into that side of a designated hot work area.

Another big one is finishes and paints. You have a very limited amount of combustible or flammable (defined by the temperature the vapors ignite) material that can be stored outside of a fire cabinet. The ones available to purchase are expensive, but you can probably buy one used or make one.

Just plan ironic that we put all of these rules in place than get mad when all the jobs move over seas.

The problem is most of these rules are written for multi billion dollar companies' factories but get applied to everyone. Good example, why would a one to five man company need written action plans for management if change. There is no way the owner /operator won't know when a piece of equipment changes. Or even better, the NFPA hot work permit on the page Matt linked. Is a one man business supposed to issue a hot work permit to himself, so he can document that he fire watched for himself while doing hot work, then file it so he can prove that he followed directions? All just to turn a grinder on.

So here's the latest in the load of dust collection drama. My dust collection contractor has officially been issued a permit to install the "cheap" plan. That is about $10,000.00, not including me having to call my electrician to run a dedicated circuit and starter for the DC. And right now I am in the process of purchasing a used 5hp industrial DC that can pull an actual 2300 CFM. Too bad it will take up uber-valuable floor space (cyclone plus huge baghouse with shaker). Still, this is better than moving, because I have access to a spray booth and more (the building is owned by a very generous guy with his own woodworking business).

Financially this has come at the worst time. This is a one-shot deal for me.....I'm tapped out. I hope there are no more snags, or else I'm temporarily out of business. Yet, I feel fortunate to have great customers, and I have good work that is allowing me to pay for this (and a couple really nice jobs in quote land. I hope I get 'em.)

*sigh*

The sunny side of all this is that I will have awesome dust collection, no more hassles (until I move again), and I can warn all my small shop owner friends about this.

- Hutch

Glenn - This is a bit late in coming, but yes, I have to hire a licensed DC contractor and pull a permit. I had a meeting with the inspector and he showed me a portion of the local code that states that I personally cannot install, or cause to be installed (i.e. ask an employee or friend to do it), any portion of the ductwork.