Shop vac - disappointing

[comfun1]

I have had several shop vacs over the years but long before they fill up the filter clogs and the suction falls off. The current one I have uses a foam filter with a cloth/paper like circular sheet over it. Are there any solutions to this that I am not aware of?

[bobs64ford352]

Is it a shop vac brand or you just generally talking about shop vacs? I haven't been impressed with shop vac brand vacuums at all, mostly due to the small hose. I have been using rigid vacuums and haven't really noticed that issue, even without a prefilter and they have a larger hose. I also started using the washable filters, which I really like. I have a rigid vac I bought 8-9 years ago and it is still going strong. I hooked it up to one of those vacuum manifold kits and it still has good suction with all that piping and a couple sections of flexible hose.

Bob

[RJT123]

I have these attached to my Fein and my cheap shop vac. Even things like drywall dust are filtered out. When it starts to lose suction, empty, and then hose off the filter. I haven't found anything that sticks to the filter.
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Gore-CleanStr...09093/100236884

[GNP]

Lots of solutions. I'm using a 12 gal. shop vac with a 2.5 inch hose, drywall bag, and Clean stream paper filter. I added a Dust deputy cyclone, and my shop vac stays empty. Not sure which shop vac you have, but adding a bag will help a lot.

[EvilTwin]

I've never been impressed with the "shopvac" brand of vacuums. Much more noise than suction and build quality is lacking. That being said, they do make bags for those units and as long as you are ok with the extra cost, they do tend to work pretty well till they get real full. When you use a bag, you take out the dust filter since the bag is now your filter. I've gotten to the point where I dont mind the extra cost since it is much more convenient and I dont fill the bag up all that quickly. If you use it in wet mode, then obviously the bag has to come out. HTH.

[bennybmn]

Dust bags work pretty well. The nature of the shop vac beast is the filter is directly in the debris stream, so it won't be long before it clogs... I have an interesting dust deputy setup, and it, or some sort of separator, is about the only way to prevent clogging.

[sweensdv]

The primary use for my shop vac is to collect the fine dust created with sanding. I use those drywall bags in my vac and they work very well for that purpose. When the bag is full I just throw it away and usually the filter is still clean and doesn't require cleaning yet.

[Axehandle]

I bought a 16 gal Shop Vac and dust deputy on CL 2 years ago and am just now using it. The previous owner told me there would be very little in the vac ever. I didn't believe him but after using it, it is completely true.

I'm impressed with the Shop Vac too. I feel you need to buy the biggest one you can afford to get any kind of performance. I used it to vacuum up the house after doing a renovation project and it is easily the most suction of any vacuum I have ever used.

[Ken Vick]

I have a rigid vac in which I put a better filter. Same one someone already pictured above. In addition I use drywall bags because they keep the filter clean and make emptying the vac very easy. The cost is very minimal. I am happy with my vac and it does a good job when hooked to my 6" Bosch sander. Ken

[Doug_H]

Comfun,

What you describe seems normal to me, especially if you use it mainly to collect sanding dust, etc. I mainly use my shop vac to collect sawdust from a chop saw and chips from a table router and yet I need to clean the filter when the dirt chamber is only a quarter full or less. Of course fine particles are going to lodge in the filter instead of falling to the dirt chamber.

I have a pleated filter on my Craftsman and Shop-Vac vacuums and when the suction falls off I remove it, clean it and replace it. The filter on the Craftsman has been cleaned and re-used maybe 50 times, probably more. I have used a "drywall bag" on the Shop Vac as others have described and it worked fine.

So, either I did not understand your post or I accept the situation as normal.

Doug