Sealing workshop from rest of house

[ChrisMathes]

Hey All,
I've been out of the workshop for a while because we had our house for sale, sold it and have moved into a rental. We are in the process of building a new workshop with a home attached.

My new shop will still be relatively small, but overall, give me more area than my shed. The difficulty is that my shed was detached and allowed me a lot of freedom with noise (late at night) and dust. Now that I will be in the house and no longer detached, I have to plan for these two things that are apparently nuisances, although I've never seen it that way.

***Here's where I need your help*** the 'room' that I am using for my shop is in the basement, which is comprised of a slab floor and 3 walls that are concrete. The back wall will be framed and the ceiling is made up of the joists for the floor to the first floor. What are the best ways for me to eliminate dust, from a structural standpoint (aka...not looking for a dust collection solution, but the best way to seal it...e.g. plastic, etc.) Secondarily, I would like to minimize the noise, so the kids don't hear me cry when a piece of wenge kicks back on my table saw and hits me square in the chest.

Thoughts, comments, suggestions?
Cheers!
Chris

 

[CarvedTones]

First some illiteration...

Google "green glue". That and extra drywall is the sound solution.

As far as dust, it is almost impossible not to talk DC, because having little in the air means there is little to escape. If you have a small fan forced vent to the outside, any leaks will be letting air in and you will keep the air fresher in there.

 

[Bas]

Both my shops have been basement shops. The best approach to containing dust and noise is to finish the space, i.e. put insulation in the ceiling joists and add drywall. That's pretty straightforward. You need some air circulation, so sealing everything off completely isn't practical. But, to keep out the larger sawdust out and some of the high-pitched whining (router, operator getting hit by piece of wenge), use floor sweeps (vinyl strips that are mounted to the underside of the door) and weatherstripping.

If you can afford the room, you can double up on the drywall and/ or add a layer of OSB. Or even better, make a double wall. Mass will dampen the low vibrations, whereas distance/ insulation helps with the higher frequencies. Consider subdiving the space too (again, depending on space), with one room for hand tools/ storage that leads to the room with the noiser and messier tools.

 

[scsmith42]

In addition to the advice put forth by Andy and The Bas, open cell spray foam insulation is a great noise deadener.

 

[Douglas Robinson]

FWW had a great article on this subject in one of the Tools & Shops issues 2-4 years ago. I will try to look it up. There are ways to hang a ceiling and build walls to deaden the noise and insulate. On the positive side you wont have to heat a separate building.

Doug

 

[Douglas Robinson]

It was the 2004 edition I believe "insulating a basement shop."

 

[ChrisMathes]

Great feedback, all! I appreciate it and will look up the fww article, also!

Cheers,
Chris

 

[Mt. Gomer]

As far as dust, it is almost impossible not to talk DC, because having little in the air means there is little to escape. If you have a small fan forced vent to the outside, any leaks will be letting air in and you will keep the air fresher in there.

My shop is in an unfinished basement. The ceilings are unfinished but they are insulated. In terms of sound transmission the insulation does ok at reducing all but the loudest machines to "white noise" levels. As for dust transmission I've had no problems. I installed a medium sized exhaust fan (about 270CFM) in the corner of my shop farthest from the windows. I crack a window on the other side of the shop and turn the fan on whenever I'm making any sawdust. Used in conjuction with a chip collector (shop vac for some machines, DC for others) it does a very good job of keeping the air clean and preventing anything airborne from getting into the rest of the house.

View image in gallery​

View image in gallery​

 

[Mark Anderson]

all you have to do is to put a garage door into the shop. if you do that then nc codes will make you insulate with r19 in the ceilings, and use 5/8 fire code sheetrock, and steel exterior (fire code) door going to the living space that will have weater stripping to keep dust controlled. . i have the exact same set-up under the in-law place in the back yard.

 

[woodguy1975]

My last shop was the exact situation you are talking about. I caught the house being built and customized it for my needs.

I put up 2/4 walls with heavy insulation. Insulate walls and ceiling and enclose any/all where you can. The hard finished surface will reflect a lot of sound. I had an open ceiling that was double insulated and still had some noise transmit to the upstairs.
I put exterior doors top and bottom of the stairs and insulated that heavily.
I allowed the ground to regulate the temp of the shop and never saw any temps lower than 55 degrees or hotter than 80 degrees with just me in the shop. Don't want to have HVAC vents in the shop from the system that feeds your house. If you want heat and air I would suggest a mini split system for the shop.
If you want to spray finishes have an area you can plastic off in front of an exit door. This worked well for me, but I had one issue. The air handler was right beside the door so it occasional would pull in the fumes from spraying into the house. So the lesson is pay attention to where you HVAC for the house it if you spray.

Good Luck,

John