Basement coal room as a shop?

[Steelhog]

Long story short I am renovating, restoring, and moving into a 100+ year old home so I will not have a traditional exterior building shop anymore. I had thought of using this home’s rather large former basement coal and boiler room as a shop as it’s fully brick and rather large but wondering if anyone else has gone this route and what you did for dust mitigation, fire protection or other concerns. Outside of getting electrical wired this seems to be a good option unless others know of issues with this setup. This does not necessarily have to be coal room specific but just wondering about other people’s basement setups and how it worked. Thanks.

 

[Hengelo_77]

I grind in a basement, to me ir's just a room like any other.

Before setting up shop, take the time to paint the walls and ceiling white. It reflects light and is easy on the eyes

 

[Ken H>]

I would install a decent dust collection system - not too hard and really helps. Are you planning any forge work?

 

[Cushing H.]

Find a way to wall/curtain off the actual grinding area. I use a spark bong directly below the grinder (the flow then goes through a dust deputy and then through a shop vac). Also, i actively exhaust the space via a pvc pipe into a dust deputy and a second shop vac. ALSO in the space outside i use a shop air cleaner. I unfortunately dont have space to totally wall off the grinder … it is open to the room where i stand … and the general air cleaner DOES capture a surprising amount of dust (especially from wood) that escapes the spark bong/general exhaust combination. I get a light coating of dust over time, but it is greatly reduced over what happened before.

For fire protection, i use the above spark bong, have at least one fire extinguisher readily available, and NEVER grind metal until i have removed any wood dust from the grinder area. Also, if you use PVC tubing for exhaust air flow, beware it can develop a static charge that can ignite wood dust in it. There are ways to prevent that involving screws frequently penetrating from the outside of the pipe to the inside, each screw in contact with bare braided wIre spiraled around the outside of the tube, said wire attached on at least one end to an electrical ground (there are several you tube videos out there about this pvc shop dust collection approach)