wrote:

May I ask you two questions:

- How much room do you leave above the motor inside the box? Here, I
am assuming that the motor in your shop vac is mounted on top of the
shop vac just like many shop vacs. I am asking this trying to figure
out how much room to leave in order to prevent overheating the motor.

Yes, the motor's in the normal place. It's a Genie. And it's LOUD.
Can't remember the model but it's not nearly as wellbuilt as the one
Woodnet tested he
http://www.woodnet.net/reviews/archive/shop-vacuums/

The only thing it does really well is suck. This thing really sucks,
and takes a long time to fill up. I got one of those red superduper
hoses for it. In that box, with that hose, it's great. :-)

There's 29 1/2 inches of height in the box and the vac is about 20
inches high. I believe that's way more than I need. I just built the
box from one sheet of ply and it ended up being about 21 inches square
and 29 1/2 deep, AFTER the carpet was in.

In my opinion, it's the air flow, not the amount of space available. If
the unit can vent the air fast enough it'll be fine no matter if
there's no extra space at all. Heat does not seem to be an issue - I've
had it running for over an hour and it's no hotter in there than it is
after ten minutes.

I've got about ten one-inch holes drilled in the top along one side.
You could hear the vac through those holes. Then I fastened a 3/4 strip
above them and down the sides, then put a sheet of 1/4 ply over that,
so the air was vented almost to the bottom. It made a big difference.

- Is your setup quiet enough to be used at 5:30am in the morning in
your driveway if your neighbor's house is just 20-ft away from the shop
vac?

Not this one. They'd hear it. But I think the idea could be taken to a
new level if you spent the money and started with the best stuff - a
quiet vac and sound-deadening box liner material - you could get your
hands on, instead of being like me and spending the least amount of
money possible. :-) My budget was much slimmer then.

With mine, if I was in the garage and also shut the garage door, that
might work.

But I would have to try it and then ask the neighbors. Actually, I've
never run ANYTHING in the shop at that time of day. I know that the
neighbor next door - about the same distance as yours - knew when I was
using the planer with the doors shut but said it didn't bother either
of them. I always take care to do my planing between noon and about 7
PM. The planer is the only one that anyone has noticed - the dust
collector, table saw, router, etc, they don't care about. Lawn mowers
make more noise than that, and we have a reel mower. :-)

I also note that neighbors really appreciated me asking them which
tools they could hear. I got cookies. I like this neighborhood.