Protection from dust

Dust is an insidious companion of stonemasons. Respirable quartz dust is deposited in the lungs for years. If silicosis becomes noticeable, it is usually too late. Dust extraction is therefore a must for every workshop. Although sludge is not harmful to health, professional water treatment is just as essential for a modern stonemasonry business.

Two companies show how they effectively purify air and water:

1. stonemason Scholz in Frasdorf has replaced a dust cabin with a water wall with a cabin with dry separation.

2 Karl Danhel from Scheiblingkirchen doesn’t do things by halves when it comes to dust. His booth extracts the exhaust air downwards.

Dust lurks everywhere

Almost all stones contain quartz in varying concentrations: granite 30-60 %, sandstone 70-90 %, limestone 1-5 %, quartz composite material up to 93 %. In the case of dust, a distinction is made between inhalable “E-dust” and respirable “A-dust”. E-dust is excreted from the respiratory tract after a few hours. A-dust can remain in the lung tissue for months before it is excreted from the body. The key to the long-term effectiveness of dust extraction systems is the perfect condition of the filter and the supply lines. A clogged filter can reduce the performance of the extraction system by more than half.

Purifying water saves money

The amount of sludge depends on the products that the stonemason processes. A medium-sized kitchen production facility produces up to 500 kilograms of sludge per day. If the same size business processes workpieces for construction or gravestones, the amount of sludge can be four times as high. A craft business with up to five employees requires around 250 liters of water per minute, which equates to 15 cubic meters per hour. There are compact systems for this, in which certain processes such as changing the filter bags are carried out manually. Companies that require more water, produce more sludge and do not want to carry out any work on the water treatment system during the eight-hour operation use systems with a filter press. At the end of the working day, the press is simply started and the sludge falls off dry.

Read more about dust extraction and water treatment in STEIN in January 2014.