For over a year, Trogdor and then Arges were ventilated with the tried-and-true dryer hose out the window method. My workshop is in the basement, so the only way to vent outside was out through a window well…
For a variety of reasons, I wasn’t 100% satisfied with this setup. Do you know how hard it is to make an egress window air-tight?
Over the past few months, I decided that exhausting out and up past our roofline was the way to go. Not only would it keep the exhaust away from our (and our neighbor’s!) windows and air intakes, by using an adjustable external-rated fan, the entire interior run is under negative pressure, so goodbye leaks!
Here’s the new setup:
Those adjustable legs in the IKEA hack table really came in handy!
Oh that? Just your run-of-the-mill radon run…
From the outside, it looks like any other HOA-friendly radon run in the area (It’s not painted yet, but it will be. From the inside of my workshop, you can’t even see the venting unless you peek behind the unit.
Initial tests over the weekend were firmly in the dancing-for-joy zone. 
Absolutely zero smell anywhere in the house, and by keeping the fan running after the GF is finished, the system sucks out the residual smoke and odors, so even my workshop is now odor-free. 
This of course will not work for everybody, but this is a real game-changer for me. Btw, the initial testing involved high-power cuts through cheap birch ply from the local big-box store – a material well-known to generate copious amounts of smoke and smell. After a new initial tests last year, I had pretty much given up on leather and bone. I plan to test these later in the week, but am really optimistic that the new system will work with these materials, too.
One thing I’ve learned after 35 years of marriage is that the key to a happy life is a happy wife. The grin on her face yesterday was well worth the effort.
EDITED: I forgot to give credit to @dnix1955 for giving me the idea for a PVC exhaust run.
