I often move the miter saw and/or table saw outside when doing lots of cutting, it cuts down on the airborne dust in the shop and does not require sweeping up afterwards. For smaller projects when I do the cutting inside I generally just sweep it out the door. As for the jointer and planer shavings, they end up in my wife's compost pile and eventually in the vegetable garden. The drill press also creates nice compost shavings when using forstner bits. If the router is used indoors those shavings also end up as compost.
Walnut shavings are a natural herbicide so should never be added to compost, but who can afford to be using walnut these days anyway...
I did check on dust collection for my little shop early on. It seems that a system which would prevent most of the airborne dust would be more elaborate and expensive than anything I wanted and even then would not be as effective as simply using the tools outdoors. Cheaper systems will collect most of the larger particles and make clean up easier but will not really help much as far as air quality inside the shop. In fact I have read that a cheap dust collector used inside the shop may help keep the air contaminated with the smaller dust particles which work their way through or around the filter, actually making things worse for your lungs than not using dust collection at all. My shop does have a 6 foot wide door on one end of the front side wall and a 4 foot wide door on the opposite end wall, so if I open all the doors and turn on a fan I can clear the air rather quickly that way.
I also transport a bit of sawdust mixed with dirt into the house on the bottom of my work boots. But since my shop is a separate building behind the house much of it is brushed off my shoes by the grass before I can get it inside (not a very efficient method of transporting sawdust). On the other hand, my metal shop is in the garage, my route to the house is all concrete and the metal chips and shavings make the trip quite well.
by Aaron Coffee » Sat Nov 07, 2009 10:28 pm 
Danny
