The before and after on coolant mist collectors blew my mind

I ran a Haas VF-3 for about 4 years at a shop in Toledo with just a basic chip tray and no mist collection. The air in there was always thick with that coolant haze, you could smell it on your clothes driving home. Six months ago we got a new boss who put in a proper mist collector system, one of those ceiling-mounted units with the HEPA filters. After three weeks I walked in one morning and actually noticed the air felt clean, like you could see all the way across the shop without that blue-ish fog. My chronic cough I had for years just disappeared, no more clearing my throat every ten minutes. What caused it was just the shop finally spending the 4 grand on a decent collector instead of cheaping out. Has anyone else had their sinuses clear up after your shop upgraded their air handling?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_jennifer1d ago

The real hidden cost nobody talks about is how much more often people call off sick in a shop without good mist collection. I worked at a place where we had two guys out with bronchitis at the same time and the boss kept blaming the weather, but the air in there was thick enough to chew. Once they finally put in a proper system, attendance went way up and people stopped dragging themselves through shifts with that hazy-headed feeling. It's not just about the cough clearing up, it's about not having every single person in the shop fighting the same respiratory crap all winter long.

evan_harris141d ago

Had a similar thing at a garage I worked at years ago with welding fumes. Boss thought a box fan in the window was good enough, ended up with half the crew coughing like they smoked two packs a day by February. New extraction system went in and suddenly nobody was out with "the crud" every other week. People don't realize how much bad air drags down a whole shop until it's gone.