Phyllis Morris Originals, West Hollywood CA, creates luxury furniture handcrafted from beautiful woods and other materials. The sawdust generated is from wood shop routers, table saws, and finishing operations. With a recent business expansion, the old baghouse dust collector no longer had the airflow capacity the woodshop needed.

Since the plant property borders a residential area, quiet operation, low emissions, and low height were key factors in the replacement decision. Brett Schervone, vice president of manufacturing, shopped around and learned about smarter, smaller Torit® PowerCore® dust collectors.

Smaller Than Traditional Baghouses

Schervone chose a Torit® PowerCore® model CPC-12, designed for 7,000 cfm airflow with a 20 hp fan. The collector contains 12 PowerCore filter packs, each measuring only 7″D x 22″L. The filter house is 4 feet high, and sits on legs and hopper, for a total height of 12 feet. A small silencer box is mounted above the clean air outlet. In contrast, a conventional baghouse with 7,000 cfm airflow would have been over twice as tall – 28 feet high – with 81 filter bags, each 8 feet long.

Better Filtration = Lower Emissions in the Neighbourhood

Donaldson’s advanced fine fiber filter media, Ultra-Web®, provides outstanding filtration in the PowerCore filter packs. In tests, Ultra-Web results in 78% fewer emissions than traditional 16-oz polyester filter bags.

Because of the large amount of dust generated, Schervone wanted a high-capacity hopper solution. Donaldson® Torit® provided a 2-yard capacity dumpster, approximately equal to seven 55-gallon drums. The air-actuated lid of the Donaldson dumpster seals tightly, preventing leaks and dust re-entrainment, while eliminating the need for a rotary airlock valve. The dumpster is on rails so it’s easy to pick up with a forklift for emptying elsewhere.

After 6 months of steady operation, the system pressure drop runs at 1.4 to 1.6 “wg. The quiet operation of the Torit PowerCore doesn’t disturb the neighborhood.

Easier Servicing

One of the major benefits of having fewer filters in the dust collector will be felt by the maintenance crew at filter service time: the Torit® PowerCore® unit has only 24 filters to service. At only 7″D x 22″L, each filter pack can be removed without tools and lifted out with one hand.

Installing new filters is also very easy: the filter pack is placed into the tube-sheet hole and secured with two wing nuts. The gasket is integral to the filter pack, providing a fresh seal with each filter change. The filter pack is self-centering and cannot be installed upside down or backwards. And, the hardware on the filter retention device is captive so that it can’t be accidentally dropped or misplaced.

Objectives Met

Schervone comments, “Without being an eyesore in the neighborhood, the Torit PowerCore® dust collector enabled us to upgrade our dust system with higher airflow, cleaner air, and quieter operation, all in a smaller footprint.”