Venting a Spray Booth

I will be moving into a Condo soon. I will be setting up my spray booth. The only place to vent it will be the same place that the dryer vent is. This dryer uses gas and the products of combustion will be going out the vent.

Will I have any issues to deal with if I put the spray vent next to the dryer vent? Could I Wye the spray vent into the dryer vent? (I will be using only water-base paints)? If I could, should I?

The spray booth has a powered exhaust fan as well as a dust bag. Should I just leave it the way it is and not worry about exhausting the fumes out of the condo?

-- The Gratiot Valley Railroad Club bi-annual train show and sale November 2, 2003, at the Macomb Community College Sports and Expo Center. Macomb County Michigan. Please visit our Web Site at:

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Reply to
Frank A. Rosenbaum
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Maybe an HVAC person could answer this, with backflow being a possible issue.

There are other people that use that space (possibly). Be considerate. Take that to mean what you like. If odor is a problem (and it may be with some people), vent it outside. Better to play it safe and get on famously with your neighbors.

If you are seen to be inconsiderate, you can alienate people from the hobby, just as straight pipes alienate me from Harley-Davidson fanatics (those inconsiderate straight-pipe a**holes!). Sorry for the editorial comment. Must be backlash from the 100th H-D anniversary celebration.

Jay CNS&M Wireheads of the world, unite!

Reply to
JCunington

If you have some double hung windows, you could fix up a piece of plywood with a vent pass-thru in it, paint it nicely, and just roll the work bench and spray booth over to the window, hook up the exhaust tube, and go to town. Paint the plywood well, mount weather strip foam top and bottom to seal it well, and maybe some folding flap stuff on the sides or just more foam. Sort of like those old window fans?

Reply to
E Litella

OR, you could make the window panel so that it is portable. It's only in the window when you're painting. The rest of the time the window is its normal self.

Captain Handbrake

Reply to
Captain Handbrake

You could vent back into the dryer.

Jim Stewart

Reply to
Jim Stewart

If you wye it into the dryer vent YOU WILL definately get some fumes in the dryer. I have a seperate vent in the wall of my place that is about 4 feet from the dryer vent and I still get paint fumes in the dryer and they are not even connected directly. The fumes find their way into the dryer vent from outside.

If fumes are an issue with neighbors build a small secondary filter inline that will cut down on the fumes. Make it out of plywood and seal all the corners with caulk. Then add a charcoal filter inside.

I also have a buddy who did this and all his clothes smelled like Floquil. He didn't mind but his wife was pretty upset.

You should vent no matter what type of paint you are spraying. Would you want any of those fumes in your lungs regardless if they are solvent or water based? Someone had a great idea of using a small piece of plywood that could be fit in the window while you paint and then removed when finished. This wood would have the vent hose connected to it.

If you build a spray booth make sure you get a fan made for paint fumes. Check Grainger for the right motor.

A great place to get more information on spray techniques and set ups is Fine Scale Miniature Magazine. Get the back issues that have a lot on airbrushing. They've done profiles on well known modellers and what they use. It's interesting to see what these modellers can do with basic equipment.

Reply to
Salinas McGee

If you wish to be paranoid about spraying the water based paints, go ahead and make your spraybooth to fit in a window frame and vent that way. Personally, I've never considered the purpose of a model spray booth to be to vent the vapors outside so much as to merely control the airflow so that I have clean air flowing over the model as I spray it and stop the particles of the paint from floating over the room that I do the spraying in. Unless you spend all day, every day, spraying with the solvent based paints, you won't have any particular problems with the paint systems that are out there for model paints, especially the water based paints for which the solvent is mostly Dihydrogen Monoxide.

-- There are more Democrats on the Calif. Special Election than Republicans! Go count if you don't believe me! Bob May

Reply to
Bob May

Hi Frank, The guys are right - the wye is a definite no-no. You should also be careful where the exit point of your exhaust system is, lest the fumes contaminate something else or find their way back into the house through open windows and such. Also and perhaps just as important, if your booth is exhausting air from a room with a gas burning appliance such as a furnace you may also starve the appliance of air needed for combustion resulting in incomplete combustion of the fuel and the resultant build up of carbon monoxide. Be careful and good luck on your move

Lynn

Reply to
Lynn Caron

Sorry I didn't make myself clear: that's just what I meant.

Reply to
E Litella

I don't have any medical problems that I know of but even the water based paints annoy me for days afterwards when I paint. It feels like my lungs are coated. I can't imagine that's good. When I paint I use a large spray booth and an industrial face mask. It's when I use the spraybooth without the mask where I feel i in my lungs.

Think about it, it's minute paint particles in the air that get in your lungs without protection.

Sal

Reply to
Salinas McGee

First, Water based paints still has some unhealthy chemicals: pigment - for the colour, binders - to form the actual film, additives - fillers,driers, improve adhesion. plus of course the water.

Secondly, I don't use a mask when I paint, and I rarely get any whiff of paint; I have an old fashioned furnace blower to exhaust my spray booth and I'm guessing it gets most of it out. Is your spray both home made or purchased? what about the fan? is it drawing enough air. A guideline in Painting and Weathering Railroad Models suggests an OSHA airflow of 100 to

200 cubic feet per minute. This is also impacted by the opening of the spray booth/tubing/filter. This may be your problem - the opening may be too large for the fan. You can close down the opening of the booth by taping cardboard as an experiment - you will get better exhaustion through the booth.

Find the opening of the spray both in square feet, divide it into the cfm that the fan is blowing, and to play it safe (because the filter and tubing will cause some drag) try be near the 200 rather than the 100 cfm.

Hope this helps.- Joe

Reply to
Joe Caruso

What these two gentlemen are suggesting works very well and is what I use. If it works in Canada (the part where I live we almost always get a week or so of -30 C during a winter) it should work anywhere. Don't forget the weather stripping, so you get a good seal.

Reply to
Mountain Goat

Thanks to everyone for the help.

I do not have double hung windows, so that good idea is out. I did have DH windows in my co-op when I was single and just put the whole spray booth in it.

It is a commercial booth with a filter and a sealed motor and a dust collection bag.

I understand about the clothes becoming smelly. Thanks.

I appreciate the warning about the airflow and the furnace and water heater. Thanks.

I am thinking of creating a dust collection system for my table saw, and might see if I can incorporate the spray booth into it.

-- The Gratiot Valley Railroad Club bi-annual train show and sale November 2, 2003, at the Macomb Community College Sports and Expo Center. Macomb County Michigan. Please visit our Web Site at:

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Reply to
Frank A. Rosenbaum

Yes, but it is relatively easy to wear a good mask to will filter out small paint particles. For solvent-based paints, there are other issues, as you would need the right kind of respirator to remove the air-borne solvents and those solvents linger in the air much longer than paint particles, which settle rather rapidly. In fact, that settling of paint dust is one of the best reasons to have a vented spray booth, as it gets all over everything.

Mark Alan Miller

Reply to
Mark Alan Miller

Most of these are not especially harmful. I've read MSDSs for many kinds of water-based paints, and nothing in them begins to approach the risks associated with inhalation of solvent-based paints. Paint dust inhalation isn't something I would recommend, but a decent mask of the sort available at good hardware stores (not just the cheap, disposable ones), should filter out almost everything. Spraying water-based paints on walls is one of the things such masks are designed for.

Mark Alan Miller

Reply to
Mark Alan Miller

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' If I were doing this I would also make a plug of insulation or foam and stuff it in the vent FROM THE INSIDE (so as not to forget it's in there!,) since when I hook up the unit to the vent, I'll be able to see the plug and remove it.

Paul - "The CB&Q Guy"

Reply to
Paul K - The CB&Q Guy

You don't need double hung windows. I have old aluminum sliding windows.

I use a plywood panel cut to friction fill the opening with a hole in the centre for the exhaust with a hose running to the booth. The panel has weatherstripping around it for a better seal. The only thing I did other than that was remove the screen so I don't have a painted circle in the middle of it.

Reply to
Mountain Goat

Why ? When you are done painting you remove the plywood panel and close the window. This is not permanently mounted in the window. It's only there when you are actually painting.

Reply to
Mountain Goat

Casements? Sliders? A full frame sized piece of acrylic with a vent pipe pass thru in it maybe? Crank it or slide it open, insert filler, hook up booth, blow it outside.

Reply to
E Litella

I have quite successfully used an existing bathroom ceiling fan (outside vented, of course) to vent a small spray booth. This required making an adapter from the square ceiling fan cover plate to 3 inch round metal duct. The adapter was a standard HVAC fitting (6 inch square to 3 inch round) acquired from Home Depot. In fact, my own booth was cobbled together from a suitable heavy cardboard box with another of the same HVAC fittings mounted to the back (using mounting tabs on the 6 inch square end). Cracks are sealed with packing tape or caulking.

I connected a 6 foot long, 3 inch diameter flexible plastic dryer duct that ran down to the booth. The plastic duct is fastened with large screw-on hose clamps. It can be disconnected from the fan adapter for booth storage when not in use. I just leave the adapter in place, but if found unsightly, it could be mounted with screws instead of the metal tabs to facilitate quick removal

A furnace filter taped inside the back of the box with packing tape was tried, but most of the overspray got through it. I also found that the air flow was adequate, but not very uniform over the filter, such that overspray near the edge could escape out the front of the box.

I then tried covering the filter with a layer of cotton cloth from an old bedsheet, pinned to the perimeter of the filter with 9 or 10 safety pins. The cloth stopped the overspray quite well, and the extra restriction made the airflow more uniform, thereby solving both problems. The furnace filter now serves as a permanent frame to hold the cloth in place; and I change the cloth occasionally when the paint clogs it.

The project turned out to be practical, inexpensive (less than $15), and quite easy to do.

"Frank A. Rosenbaum" wrote:

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bourne.id

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