How long does wood dust take to settle?

[Sheptonphil]

Tell me about it, stuff gets everywhere but HSE advise that you should suck not blow. Another reason to vent to the outside. There has been far fewer of the little blighters since I upgraded my extraction and started venting to the outside.

You should suck not blow but it only works close up. Blowing reaches the parts that sucking can't touch e.g.you can blow dust from the bottom of a box of tools or from the cracks and crannies in and around machines.

I follow Jacob's routine.

Once a week or so, as I leave the workshop and still wearing a dust mask, I use the air blower to remove find dust that has settled on shelves, tops of machines, between jars and tools on the shelves etc. I do have a decent chip and dust removal system to each machine in place, drawn to outside collection, a 9" fan constantly exhausting to the outside, and a bench and floor vacuum sucker run from the 4" system, for post work clear up, it's just that a good blow once a week drops a lot of surface settled dust to the floor ready for vacuuming at the start of the session, usually in a couple of days. I find this practice all but eliminates the fine dust that used to float in the air just by getting blanks or boxes off shelves.

Phil