50 Cent Shop Vac Hack 

For those of us who haven’t yet built our dust control system, here’s a tip: I put my filter into a kitchen waste bag, then beat it against the inside of my waste can. Clear filter. No dust cloud.

Great tip it's also recommended to use a vacuum bag instead. Prolong the filter even longer.

This THE best shopvac advise on RU-vid! Thank you.

As he stood peeing in the wind "It's all coming back to me now"

There is a reason the filters are pleated - greater surface area. Adding sock to outside decreases surface area. Be prepared to open and clean filter more often.

For several years I've been using upright vacuum cleaner bags slipped over the regular filter and held in place with a zip tie. Usually have to cut off the very top of bag to slip over other filter. You can usually find them dirt cheap (no pun intended) at garage sales, thrift stores. They last a long time, shake or blow them off.

I do a lot of Remodels and repairs on rental units as a Property Manager. Shop Vacs are a essential part of my tools! I've tried every damned filter I could find over decades. None seem to last long for me. One day I go to use my shop vac and the paper filter had fallen to pieces leaving the wire cage frame. I didn't want to stop what I was doing so I got creative. I took an old T-Shirt rag and cut a long wide strip to wrap around the cage. Put 2 rubber bands on it to hold it in place. I finished the job and it seemed to work just fine. At the end of the day I took the rag off and threw it in the rag pile to be washed. I've been doing this now almost 10 years. It seems to work just fine and does not put extra strain on the motor. It catches the same amount and size of particles etc.. Works for me and I don't have to buy filters.

For most jobs, I use a couple layers of pantyhose stretched over a wire cylinder made from old 14-16 gauge galvanized wire fencing. When I’m needing more filtration I use a bag filter meant for drywall dust and is designed to fit a smaller vacuum. It attaches to the intake hose stub and forms a “C” shape if you look straight down at it, with the center of the”C” being open space large enough for the usual pleated filter to fit. This cuts my usable space down by half or so.

I haven't had to deal with this problem in years ever since I started using bags. I can vacuum all kinds of dust multiple times and when I open it up the filter still looks perfect. I do sweep up the big stuff first because I don't like to fill my Shop-Vac up with all that crap.

We used to do that for the air filters on our dune buggies "back in the day" with a pair of nylon stockings. I never thought of doing it for a shop vac. This is brilliant!!

I found a hack on here a couple years ago so, not my idea but it works pretty well. Take some regular white kitchen paper towel and wrap around the pleated filter. One layer only with a slight overlap, hold it in place with a couple pieces of wire, one top and bottom. I leave good sized tails on the wires so they are easy to undo when covered in fine dust, it doesn't take much to hold as the suction keeps it on when the vac is running. When it's clogged just undo the wires and drop the towel in the base, no mess, no dust cloud, no clean up. Dump the vac, new paper towel, good to go for a couple pennies.

Good tip, thank you. If you already said it, I missed it but, that would be good for use on wet debris or water vacuuming, helps saves the filter paper from getting soaked.

Great idea. In the Canadian Amazon site, these very same scum socks are 3 times the price at almost $37 for a 20 pack. However, I have used similar products before, but they kept getting badly plugged up with politicians, lawyers, insurance agents and bankers...

Never bang the pleated part against the rubbish bin. Use the rubber edges to dislodge the 'big stuff. Also, when using the air hose, start by blowing from the inside of the cylinder and then take the time to run thru each crevace in the pleats and go back to the inside blowing out. If you have a German Shedder dog, that hair make a good outter filter :)

Love it. Nothing makes my day more than running across an idea that works for day to day life.!

Watched this a few weeks ago.... Just put a skimmer sock on my Karcher shopvac. Thanks and seasons greetings from New Zealand. Stay safe.

I blow my filter out with a leafblower. Been six years since and haven't bought a filter yet! Works great!

Been using a 1 gallon paint strainer and they fit perfect with the elastic band.

You just saved me a TON of MONEY. THANK$$$$$$ I always use expensive bags in my 16 gallon Shop-Vac but the filters eventually manage to get filthy and I lose suction. So I will continue using the bags but now I will use these socks on my filter too. I will also use them on my monster MS660 saw mill chainsaw too.

Great video. About 25 years ago shopvac sold a pre-filter sock that fit over the filter. They were expensive. I purchased one and tied it on. The material was a tightly woven rayon (?). It had a really slippery feel to it. of It was a sloppy baggy loose fit, but I think it was designed that way. It worked like a charm! Plenty of extra square inches of baggy of surface area for longer periods of vacuuming. Plus the most of the debris would fall off during use. After that, I didn't have to purchase another filter. The original filter catches the last bits of dust and eventually clogs up, after many uses. The only draw back was that it took a while to untie the sock, clean the stock filter, then put it all back together. Overall it's awesome. But I haven't seen them for decades.

For big cleaning jobs, I use a homemade lid with two hoses in / out on my wheelie bin to make it an intermediate dirt catcher, one hose to suck, the other connected to the vac. Dirt straight into where it has to go, and minimal dust.

That's a great tip - something I haven't heard before. Definitely going to give it a try. Thanks!

I use a dust separator and a vac bag. I usually get 4-6 separator fills per bag and clean the filter after 2 bag replacements unless I'm sucking up drywall or overspray (clean filter with each bag). I will give this a shot and maybe get a 3rd or 4th bag per filter cleaning when working wood.

Great tip, thanks. Watching you hose out that filer made me chuckel. My grandfather told me, `boy, never pee into the wind`.

A paintbrush makes a good tool for a quick clean. It gets between the folds of the filter.

Thanks for another great idea 💡

Great idea! I didn’t know what to expect from this mysterious hack but now I think I’m going to try it.

I'm going to try the same this weekend. Thank ya sir.

Great. That reminds me that many small engine filters use a thin layer of foam over the regular paper filter. That cheap piece of foam layer keeps the filter like new for the longest time. If it were not there, one would have used about five filters. All one needs to do is to take off the foam, wash it, put it back when dry. Eventually, the paper filter will get choked by fine dust, but it saves you quite a few filters in between. I need to go buy a thin sheet of foam and either use super glue (if it does not melt right through the foam), or all purpose glue to make a sleeve around the large shop vac filter.

Very good making the scum sock connection. But I have to say that super dusty clean-up you went through outdoors is the reason I buy bags for my shop vac. The bags keep my filter cleaner than the scum sock. Yes, the bags will rip when overused but a lawn bag can be placed over the entire vac and then turn it upside down. It's a lot less dust than what you were exposed too. There could be anything in that dust and none of is good for your lungs, nor do you want that dust on your clothes, thus tracking it wherever you go.

I use a clean old socks simple and using a shop vac from the 80’s and still working great

Multiple filtration is always the case,simple hack like this is genius,good teach!

I used to keep two filters, then occasionally switch and vacuum the dirty filter clean. It would get almost all the dust off the dirty filter, and only about 10% of that would wind up on the new filter. This is a good trick to know, and should reduce the need to clean the filter thoroughly.

Cool idea man, I was trying to watch you clean the filter but the sun was in my eyes. Lol 😆

Thanks! Great idea!

Great hack, thanks! First time seeing this!

Oh man the filter companies are hunting you down right now! LOL, Thank You it's a great idea I won't have to use my Mother in laws double DD cups!

At the time of this post on 2021-03-12, Amazon is selling the 30-pack for a higher cost per sock than the 20-pack even *with* a 5% coupon on the 30-pack, so check the price before checking out. The difference is minor, but I expect bulk packs to be better values and will not buy them otherwise; I'll just buy more of the smaller packs instead. The difference is minor in this case, but it's unreasonable to charge *more* for a bigger volume of product and may sometimes even be done intentionally in the hopes that your customers are bad at math. Many are. Be very wary of Walmart for this, as well, as they often sell bulk packages for a higher price per unit than smaller packs. I've seen Walmart do this for everything from cereal to toilet paper, so I no longer assume that a bulk or "family" pack is the better value at Walmart; look at the shelf tag or do the math in your head or on your phone. I've even found shelf tags at Walmart that displayed completely incorrect price/unit costs, so I do a mental estimate to see if the displayed price seems reasonable.

We use to use panty hose legs and socks on our pool filter elements, Same could be done for vacuum filters. Just knot or cable tie one end of the legs, might get 4-6 pre-filters that way. If the filter is solid on bottom use a leg segment as a sleeve.

These look great I have been using nylons from the dollar tree all my life with my shop vacs and they are not the strongest things they work okay but this looks like a real solution to my shop! Thank you for sharing!

Great idea! Many shop vacs already have a foam pre-filter that comes with it. You could spray it with a wax based furniture polish to really make it catch dust like you do with furnace air filters, but that would mean you would need to wash it with soap. I seen one vac with a sock hat over the paper filter. It worked! The finer the filtration, the more work the motor does.

You can use some old nylons to achieve the same result, although a little more dust may get through, but still a great filter saver (your neighbors downwind must LOVE you lol)

Thanks! Will try them.

I use the pool socks, they work great and really cutdown on removing filter and cleaning it as often. 😊

i have been using my wife's old stockings,, but they aren't perfect, i'm gonna get me a scum sock,, but whenever i can , i just put another hose from the exaust , out a door or window , without using the filter, it's way stronger also,,i paint cars and we were always told that the exaust from the original "shop vac" brand was intended to blow dry water from cars after washing them to avoid soap spots, so it also does that well, it will also blow snow away pretty effectivly too,,most of the time

I’ve been using a sleeve from an old tshirt for years works great.

Thank for the tip. I'm going to try this on my shop vac

I found a use for the dozen hair nets leftover from my daughter's slumber party 15 years ago. Great idea.

My vac uses a bag in addition to the filter it works great!

I have been using blue shop paper towels held in place by two thick rubber bands for over a year . Incredibly there is no discernible loss of suction . Try it out and comment me back. Much cheaper than the .50 cents for the scum sock. Thanks

I had some fabric at home that was a stretchy material that braids really well just like that didn't affect the power at all until it got clogged with dust but definitely saved my filter

My shop vac never gets that full the Home Depot duststopper takes it all. Yes its a pain having the extra bucket but I'm going to build a cart to take care of that. However, some dust gets through to the vac filter and your idea is a good one and I'll try that as well.

You know when it's a great idea because you feel so dumb not to have thought of it. Excellent 😂👍🏻

Thanks a lot Keith! Just ordered a 30 pack. Would you mind letting us know what that great acoustic guitar music is? Thanks again.

I paused your video, went to Amazon and bought a 40 pack!!!! Great tip

Excellent idea. Thanks for the video.

Interesting, I have been using my wife's old nylon stockings which does the same thing. That is if the wife uses them, I figure since those are not cheap and when they rip I just cut off the rip portion and tie the other end and wrap around the filter it works great. For those of you that your wife wears nylons socks that works the same.

🎵all we are is just dust in the wiiiinnndddd🎶

Thanks for the sweet tip of filter socks....

Good idea I may have to try this. I also use a piece of fleece ( as in fleece blanket) fitted over the filter held in place with bungee and staples.

I am curious to know if covering the filter compromises performance. This type of filter allows better air flow because of the increased surface area the pleats provide. If you cover the filter, are you reducing surface area or is the cover porous enough to not have an effect?

I almost spit out my beer.... A WHAT sock?!

Amazon has cloth filters that go over the vac filter. That combined with a vac bag almost eliminates the majority of the particulates both coarse and fine.

Thanks for the video. I just ordered some. I've done it all. Including cleaning the dirty filter in that cyclone of dust. Even have shop vac bags that fit inside the vacuum to filter fine particles. Still the best item I purchased for the money is the shop vacuum itself.

I think shop vac are designed to be used with a dust bag ALONG WITH the pleated filter. The idea is the paper bag protects the filter from getting caked with fine dust

based on comments you have a very critical/observant viewing audience. worth the read

Best thing I've used on my shop vac is a dust deputy. It's a cyclone that goes before debris goes into the shop vac. I made a stand for the shop vac and 5 gal bucket with the dust deputy on top.

Digging the guitar ! Great video.

note to self: stand UP wind when dumping filter. 😂

Most kinds of pantyhose work well for this too!

Sounds like a great idea, just ordered some

Excellent. Thanks for the info and the link. This is something that I can really use!

Well, first of all you are vacuuming all wrong. I have been a supervisor at many construction job sites and we have many temp workers come in and make the same mistake. Almost all of them will come into a room that has been "mudded" and then sanded, and then proceed to try and vacuum up the drywall mud dust. And of course the filter would plug with in minutes. Then they would have to go outside and clean it. They spent more time cleaning the filter then the floor : ( The proper way to use any vacuum is to sweep the vast majority of the dust, or what ever, first into piles and then use a broom and dust pan to put these into a garbage. Then you are left with just a light skiff to be vacuumed up. Work smarter, not harder.

Great tip, thanks for the share!

Thanks, excellent hack!

Crazy how this brings back memories of my teenage years

Great idea. I’ll try on our spa and shop vac. Thanks 👌

Great video! Thanks for sharing!

Thanks. Pool guy here. I'm suing. 🤣

Thanks for the great tip!

Good tip!

Very nice video. Thanks for sharing. I will give that a try. God bless you and yours.

Well done ,,,comon sense prevails yet again ,,,O,,,i was told once that comon sense is not as common as one would think..Thank U for the help

great to learn about always good to learn something you didn't know..

Your demonstration made my sinuses get itchy. Thanks! I'm shopping!

we found that too, only after buying them for our pool skimmer, and we don't need a new one for months, ....so we had many extra, and their cheap. started thinking of other uses. Used to always be the foam filter over the paper in the shopvac.

I use corrugated drain tile filter sock material for these type of needs, works great.

Just ordered 20 . Thanks!

Great video dude your spot on about the sock I use a nylon tight 🙈it works . I just got a new vac with self clean filter push button cleaning me being a chimney sweep it's so important to have good suction 👍🙏

First I tap the filter in a bag. When the vac is in two peaces, I plug in the motor side in and now I have a blower. Works great.

That's a great idea. Thanks

❤Compressor air hose is how I have cleaned the same filter over years.

Great video. Thanks for putting it together. I just ordered a pack. FYI - the link to amazon shows out of stock and no clear restocking date. I ordered mine through another online retailer.

Thanks for the tip , I had some material they use in hospital to pull round bandage on arm or legs but I dont know where to buy that stuff

Good idea. I'll give it a try

Great idea, thanks for sharing.👍👍👍

Great idea, thanks.

Very nice product!!

Cool idea, Thanks

Did it! Great hack!