Thirty years of table saws, and what I'd tell a younger woodworker about his ears
I've built kitchens and built-ins out of a shop in Kenosha since 1993. For roughly the first half of that I wore hearing protection when I remembered, which was mostly when I was running the planer. The table saw, the router table, the shop vac and the radio I kept turned up over all of it, I didn't think about at all.
By my late forties I had a ring in both ears at night and I was asking customers to repeat themselves across a kitchen island. A hearing test showed what the audiologist called a classic noise pattern. That's when I started reading about it, and I wish I'd started thirty years sooner.
This site is for other people who work with loud tools, whether it's a trade or a garage on weekends. I'm not a safety engineer or a doctor. I read the government standards and the research so you can skip the parts that don't matter.
The numbers that matter
- 85 dBA
- the level NIOSH says worker exposure should stay under over an 8-hour day
- 3 dB
- louder halves the safe time, under the NIOSH rule
- About 18%
- of adults aged 20 to 69 with 5 or more years of very loud work noise have speech-frequency hearing loss in both ears
Source: OSHA occupational noise page; NIDCD quick statistics on hearing.
The first two numbers come straight from OSHA's occupational noise page, which lays out both the legal limit and the stricter limit recommended by NIOSH, the federal agency that researches workplace safety. The third is from the NIDCD's hearing statistics, and it describes about a fifth of the guys I came up with.
Here's the part that took me too long to understand: noise damage is about the dose, not just how loud. A tool that's fine for two minutes can do damage over two hours. And it adds up across the day. The router, then the sander, then the saw, then the vac, all count toward the same total.
What I do now
- Earmuffs hang on a hook next to every machine, so they're closer than any excuse.
- Foam plugs in a jar by the door for anyone who walks in.
- Anything over about a minute of cutting means protection, no exceptions.
- The radio goes off when the machines are on. I was turning it up to hear it over the saw, which is backwards.
- The dust collector got moved to a closet with a door, which knocked a lot off the background level.
- A hearing test every couple of years, so I know if anything's changing.
None of it is expensive. The muffs cost about what a good chisel does.
Three longer pieces
I've written up the three things other woodworkers ask me about. How loud my tools actually measure, and how long you can run them. Earplugs versus earmuffs, and how much protection the number on the package really gives you. And whether supplements like magnesium can protect your ears from noise, which I was surprised to find has some real research behind it.
If your hearing is already slipping, protection is still the most important thing, because it keeps the loss from spreading. For everything else, I've found this rundown of natural ways to keep your hearing sharp the most practical: noise, blood pressure, exercise, smoking, diet. It reads like it was written for people who'd rather be in the shop than at the doctor.
If something changes suddenly
A sudden drop in hearing in one ear, especially with ringing or dizziness, isn't a shop problem. It needs a doctor within a day or two. Don't wait it out like I would have.
Dale Kuchar has built cabinets in Kenosha, Wisconsin, since 1993, and wore hearing protection for maybe half of those years. He writes about shop noise for other woodworkers. He is a tradesman, not a safety engineer or a doctor.