Tried using a standard shop vac on a concrete dust job and ruined my filter in 20 minutes

I had to sand down some high spots on a slab in Denver last week and figured my old Rigid shop vac could handle the dust. Nope. The filter clogged solid in under 20 minutes and I was blowing more dust out than I was picking up. Learned the hard way that you need a HEPA-rated vac or at least a dust separator for concrete work. Anyone else make this mistake or know a good budget vac that actually works for this?

3 comments

3 Comments

rosepark5d agoRising Star

Ugh, that's brutal. I did the exact same thing with our old shop vac and it took forever to clean that filter.

-1

pat_harris5d ago

I get what you're saying @rosepark, but I actually don't mind cleaning the filter all that much. I just take it outside, bang it on the driveway a few times, then hit it with a compressed air nozzle. Usually gets 90% of the dust off in under five minutes. The trick is to do it before the dust settles in and bonds to the filter fibers. Waiting until it's baked on is where people mess up.

lee.cora5d ago

Honestly @rosepark, I feel your pain so much on this one. That cloud of fine dust just gets everywhere, and you don't realize how bad it is until you've already sucked half of it into the filter. I did this with my old Rigid shop vac last spring after cleaning out the garage, and I was scrubbing that filter for a good hour. Ngl, I ended up just buying a new filter because the old one was caked so bad it wouldn't come clean. It's one of those lessons you only learn once, you know?