The answer is yes in almost all cases. It make sense to save on energy costs by returning heated or air conditioned air back into the workspace after it exits the dust collector. When using recirculating dust collection systems, special safety and performance concerns must be addressed. Often, a secondary bank of filters acts as a 'safety filter' to prevent collected dust from re-entering the workspace should there be a leak in the dust collector's primary filters.Read the online article, Recirculating Air From Dust Collectors. It discusses benefits, safety issues, meeting OSHA IAQ standards, filter media and monitoring, and explores fire and explosion concerns. Also, here is a case study on a dust collector installation where cleaned air was recirculated back into the workspace, allowing considerable savings in heating costs during the long and cold New Hampshire winters. This is a woodworking application. The same principle could be applied to recirculated cooled air on a hot summer day in Texas!
