Creature Comforts

Foot ease:
Here’s relief from tired feet and legs; cover the floor in front of your workbench with a scrap of low-pile carpet. Besides providing cushioning, it prevents a major cause of leg discomfort — the transfer of body heat from legs and feet to cold concrete. And it’s easily cleaned with a vacuum cleaner. You can also reduce strain on leg and back muscles by standing on a rubber antifatigue mat, available from home centres and floor-covering stores.

Home alone:
Can’t hear the doorbell in your workshop? Buy a trailer stoplight (check the voltage first) at a car parts store and connect it to the doorbell wiring at the point where the wires run closest to your workshop. Install it at eye level so that it will catch vour attention whenever someone rings the bell. To amplify your workshop phone, electronics stores carry an extension bell.

Attention getter:
Family members can also call you to come to dinner or to the phone by ‘ringing’ the trailer stoplight. Just hook it to a separate doorbell transformer and to a doorbell button inside the house. It’s a lot safer than getting an unexpected tap on your shoulder while you’re using a machine.

It’s not the heat:
If your workshop is damp, install a dehumidifier. In addition to making life less muggy for you, it will keep tools from rusting, prevent timber from swelling and rotting, and speed up the drying of glue, paint and other finishes.

Clearing the air:
To rid your workshop of fine dust particles and noxious fumes, it’s essential to have good cross, ventilation. If your workshop has two facing windows, open one and place a fan in the other so that it blows out. If there is only, one window, consider installing an exhaust fan in the wall opposite, or in the ceiling.

Chilly workshop?
Give it a quick warm-up by installing an infrared heat lamp over your work-bench. It will warm your hands and tools so that you can work comfortably on cold days. Use a heat lamp that screws into a standard ceramic screw light fitting. Heat lamps typically drain 250 watts, so check that the wiring can handle the lamp plus whatever other equipment you use on that circuit.

Extended work season:
Is your workshop inside an unfinished garage? For the cost of insulation, you can use the space for a greater part of the year and increase your comfort in extreme weather. Give priority to the roof, where most heat is lost or gained. Staple fibreglass batts, vapour barrier down (if thore is one), between the joists or install a ceiling of plasterboard and lay insulation between the joists.

Save steps:
Take a cue from kitchen designers. Arrange your workshop in an efficient triangle that puts the workbench, tool storage and assembly areas all within easy reach of one another. Set up your lumber storage and wood-cutting and wood-shaping tools in a similar fashion.

Noise control

Workshop door sealants:
Keep both noise (and dirt out of the rest of the housc-, by secil~g the gaps around ~Four ~vorlcshop door. Tack spring-metal or tubular-gasket weatherstripping along the edges of the fidme and mount another strip along the door bottom. If yours is a houow-core door, glue or staple acoustic t~es onto its ivorkshop side or replace it with a sohd-core door.

Sound barrier:
Contain loud workshop noises bl~ soundproofing the wills bet/veen your workshop and living areas, If i wall is unfinished, inst~ffl batts of rock-~vool or noise control blank-et between the studs, and cover them with wallboard. Cover a finished wall (or ceiling) with acoustic tiles, or even better, applv a sounddeadening board, such as Sonoboard, followed by a second layer of wallboard.
To silence a freestanding piece of workshop equipment, take apart its base, stand or cabinet. As you reassemble the piece, apply ~t bead of silicone sealant where~ier metal parts join. This will bond the parts and keep them from vibrating against one another.

Clamp down on vibrations:
Reduce the noisy -,.-ibr~itions of a bencli top power tool by putting a rubber pid or carpet scrap under each tool leg and clamping the tool to the bench.

Glue rattling parts together:
To silence a freestanding piece of work-shop equipment, take apart its base, stand or cabinet. As you reassemble the piece, apply a bead of silicone sealant wherever metal parts join. This will bond the parts and keep them from vibrating against one another.