Originally Posted By: larry818
My house, wood framed, has wall cavities that are 14" x 46". If I can draw 15"hg, that's about 4,500 lbs, I think it would break.


Quite possibly. But a vacuum or shopvac won't give nearly that amount of suction. Okay, sure it will, within a 2" diameter hose. But not within a much larger volume wall cavity. Small vacs like that simply cannot move enough air volume to sustain that kind of pressure within larger volumes.

The workshop dust collector I have here, can apparently generate 15" (water) static pressure through a 6" diameter pipe. It might have a hope of damaging an enclosed wall cavity, but I'd have to try it to know for sure. I did have to reinforce the metal waste bins I use for catching the chips from it -- they were definitely trying to implode!

Still, this is a topic just begging for experimentation!

I have one more sheet of drywall to install downstairs at some point, and if there are sufficiently large cutoffs from that I will create a fake stud wall to try both the shopvac and the much beefier dust collector on.

Cheers