Dust From a Remodeling Project can Damage Your Home

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The home remodeling process often means construction dust and debris finding its way into every little nook and cranny of your home. But you can reduce the dust and mess by following these easy tips for preparing and protecting your home during your next remodeling project.

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Seal off with plastic
Cover up air ducts
Avoid masking tape hassles
Drive dust outside with a fan
Vacuum without raising more dust
Shield floors from scratches and dents
Protect stairs safely
Wrap doorways for bump protection
Cover baseboard with cardboard

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Seal off with plastic

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Create a tight, plastic dust barrier

Dust goes everywhere air flows, so the key to stopping dust is stopping airflow. A loose curtain of plastic hung with a few strips of tape won’t do the job. Instead, make your dust barrier as airtight as possible. Completely seal the top and sides with tape. Taping to walls is usually easier than taping to woodwork. If you can’t seal the bottom edge with tape, lay a board across it. Light plastic (1 mil or so) is fine for most jobs.

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Adhesive-backed zippers let you pass

If you need to pass through the dust barrier, use heavier 4- or 6- mil plastic and add an adhesive-backed zipper. These are available at home centers and lumberyards.

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Cover up air ducts

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Seal ducts with plastic and tape

Construction dust sucked into return air ducts can plug your furnace filter. Even worse, small particles can pass through the filter and coat every room in the house with a blanket of fine dust when the blower turns on. Air supply ducts can be a problem too—dust that settles inside will come blasting out when your heating/cooling system starts up. You can close the damper on a supply register, but it won’t seal out dust as effectively as plastic and tape.

Avoid masking tape hassles

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Don't buy cheap tape

Use a medium-adhesion tape for most jobs. These tapes have names like “Safe Release” or “Clean Release.” There are also low-adhesion tapes for delicate surfaces like wallpaper, and high-adhesion tapes for hard-to-mask surfaces like brick. A painting store often has the best tape selection. Remove the tape as soon as possible. The adhesive bond strengthens over time. Depending on the type of adhesive, masking tapes are meant to stay in place from one to 14 days. Check and heed the label.

Drive dust outside with a fan

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Blow dust particles out the window

A fan blowing out the window helps to keep dust levels down, and it creates a slight vacuum in the work area. That way, any gaps in your dust barrier will let air flow into the work zone, but dust-laden air can’t sneak into surrounding rooms. This works so well, in fact, that you may not even need a dust barrier for light dust projects. Just be sure to close large gaps around the fan with cardboard or plastic so wind gusts don’t blow the dust right back inside.

Vacuum without raising more dust

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Use extra hose and exhaust outside

The exhaust stream from a shop vacuum can raise more dust than the vacuum sucks up. And small particles (like drywall dust) can sail right through the vacuum filter to form a fine dust cloud. You can solve both problems with some extra vacuum hose: Connect a hose to the exhaust port and run it outside, or set the vacuum outside and run the hose inside.

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Use high-efficiency vacuum filters

If you want a filter that traps even the tiniest dust particles, try a high-efficiency version such as the CleanStream filter. These filters are pricey ($25 to $35), but they’re easy to clean and last for years. Ten feet of 2-1/2 in. vacuum hose costs about $20 at home centers. CleanStream filters are available at home centers or visit cleanstream.com

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Shield floors from scratches and dents

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Use hardboard to protect hard flooring

A hammer knocked off a ladder can dent hard wood flooring, chip ceramic tile or even puncture vinyl, and heavy foot traffic will grind grit into the floor. For protection against falling tools (and just about everything else), cut sheets of 1/8-in. hardboard to fit the room and duct-tape them together at the seams. Also tape around the perimeter with masking tape so grit can’t get underneath the hardboard and scratch the floor.

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Rosin paper provides a quick cover up

For quicker protection of hard flooring, use strips of rosin paper taped at the seams and around the perimeter. While rosin paper can’t match the impact and puncture protection of hardboard, two or three layers of it provide good defense against scratches and spills. A 4 x 8-ft. sheet of 1/8-in. thick hardboard costs about $7 at home centers. A roll of rosin paper costs about $8 and covers about 400 sq. ft.

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Protect stairs safely

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Use rosin paper for wood stairs

Protecting stairs is tricky because you don’t want to use anything that will cause a slip or trip. Rosin paper is a good choice for wood stairs because you can crease it over the edge of the tread and tape it securely around the entire perimeter. You can also tape separate sheets to the risers. For carpeted stairs, use a long, narrow dropcloth (called a runner). Secure the runner by driving small nails right through the carpet and into the treads.

Wrap doorways for bump protection

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Cardboard protects narrow spots

With or without a helper, cardboard is a good defense against accidents. You can wrap door jambs with it, cover up wall corners, or even shield large sections of wall along main pathways. To make sure the cardboard stays in place, crease it thoroughly to fit corners and don’t be stingy with the masking tape. Doors can take a beating during remodeling too. The best protection is to remove them from the work zone. If removing a door isn’t practical, clad it with cardboard.

Cover baseboard with cardboard

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Cut strips and tape them in place

Whether you’re moving a ladder or stacking 2x4s, it’s all too easy to bang up baseboards. But protecting them is simple: Just cut strips of cardboard about an inch wider than your baseboard, set them against the wall and tape them top and bottom. If nearby walls are at risk, don’t hesitate to tape cardboard over them as well. It’ll save you from having to spend a weekend repainting.

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