Sanding drywall is a hectic job when you don’t know how to do it properly. People often mess up with the dust that is generated by sanding. If you mess up and expose yourself to dust, it can be disastrous to your lungs. Drywall particles can cause severe respiratory problems that can take you to the hospital.
For making your tasks safe and easy, we are sharing 5 easy steps by which you can limit exposure to dust when sanding drywall.
Take Precautionary Measures
Prevention is better than cure. This is why you should take proper precautions before starting work. Use safety goggles for saving your eyes. Because exposing eyes to drywall dust can make eyes red and itchy. For your respiratory health, use a face mask that prevents dust from going through. Make sure to wear the mask perfectly so that there remains no space between your face and the mask from where dust can go into your lungs.
Buy a Good Drywall Sander
Sanding drywall can be done with manual and automatic sanders. An automatic sander having a vacuum hose installed can collect dust from the source with a vacuum. The Tooly claims that automatic drywall sanders are fast workers, easy to use, minimize dust, and gives the best finish to the surface. On the other hand, a manual sander can’t manage dust at the source, works slow, and hard to get a perfect finish. Having said so, you should collect sandpapers and sanding sponges to sand the corners and edges.
Use a Good Dust Collector
When you have a good sander with dust collecting hose, you need to take a good dust collector too for collecting the dust from the source. Expensive sanders come with in-built dust collectors where cheaper ones don’t. You can use your vacuum cleaner with the sander or get a separate one. Whether you use old one or buy a new vacuum, ensure that the machine is powerful enough to collect all the dust from the sander at the moment it is generated. So that you do not end up collecting a portion of dust and leaving the other.
Seal the Room
When you are working on a room, whether it is sanding or painting work, limit entrance to the work area. Limiting outsider’s entrance will save you from cleaning the whole house instead of just the room you have worked on. For sanding, you need to seal all the entrances of the room like windows, ventilators, doors, etc. completely. This will limit the dust into a room and when you conclude the task, it will be easier for you to clean a room than the whole house.
Clean the Room
After you are done with sanding, do not leave the job site without cleaning it properly. You must clean every corner of the room so that there remains no dust. Leaving the room to clean the next day can come out as a very bad decision. You will see specks of dust all around the house when you rise in the morning.
Conclusion
As you end up reading the whole article, you should now be able to limit the exposure to the drywall dust. Make sure to follow each step carefully for getting the perfect result. If you want to do your job with manual sanders, you should double-check the precautionary steps as manual sanders create a lot more dust than automatic ones. Limiting dust exposure is not so easy without proper tools. Since this can come out costly to your health, you should not compromise for saving a few bucks. After all, health is true wealth.
