Basement shop air exhaust for finishing fumes and odors.

About 3/4ths of my basement is finished into a family room, the remaining 1/4 has been walled off for my wood shop, this gives me the comfort of air conditioning and heating. My problem is the odors and fumes created when refinishing my wood projects are going through out the house. Can I install some kind of exhaust fan to vent those odors and fume to the outside witho ut affecting my heating and air conditioning, would a bathroom type venting fan work or would a larger system be required?

Reply to
dashereugene
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Probably. How much square/cubic footage is your shop area? Do you have a window in your work area, to modify, maybe for a fan or other exhaust (and air intake?) unit.

If practical: Consider an intake air supply, also, rather than the outgoing ducting removing the AC/heated air. Close the AC/heat vents prior to finishing, at least for some circumstances.

Also, possibly, drape off (temporarily) your finishing area, so that the fumed air flow would be mostly/best guided toward the exit fan, only.... i.e., least amount to mix with the fresh air, coming in.

Sonny

Reply to
Sonny

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

As Sonny suggested, you have to consider where the air is coming from to replace what you are venting to the outside. If it's coming from the air conditioned/heated part of the house, then yes, it will affect your heating and AC.

Depending on what your fumes are and their intensity, you might need a fan rated for flammable vapors.

Ideally you'd have two fans, or a two speed fan - so you can have a higher flow rate while you're actually doing the finishing work, and a lower one while the project is drying (e.g. overnight).

John

Reply to
John McCoy

Not to mention moisture content. Bringing warm, moist, air into a basement isn't a good idea.

It would be _really_ unusual to have an air mixture above the flammability (or explosive) limit. If the concentration in the room were that high, the room would blow anyway. IMO, this is sorta like the "ground your DC so you don't have a dust explosion" sort of thing.

Reply to
krw

Back when taverns allowed smoking, there were boxes on the ceiling that filtered the smoke out. Electrostatic air cleaners, they glommed dust and odors with ion generators. Every so often you had to put the 'filter' elements through a dishwasher. Home units were available to bolt into your air-handler.

Not sure how economic they are, though. There's also "heat recovery ventilator" systems that do the task you have in mind, more efficiently than just opening a window.

Find an HVAC outfit and ask questions...

Reply to
whit3rd

snipped-for-privacy@attt.bizz wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Well, I don't know...what if he chose to build a spraybooth type enclosure, to help ensure all the fumes go out the vent? Seems like you could end up with a situation where the concentration at the fan was pretty high.

Probably not an issue, but worth taking a moment to think about.

John

Reply to
John McCoy

A small, isolated booth, perhaps but anything room-sized should be no problem. If it's high enough in the room to be a problem, he'd have a problem. There are plenty of ignition sources around.

A moment, sure. But overthinking problems is also a problem.

Reply to
krw

That might work well with pain overspray (though cleaning dried paint off the filters may be a problem) but electrostatic filters aren't going to do anything for VOCs.

That's probably the best advice yet. There are heat-exchangers made to exchange inside/outside air and retain the heat and limit moisture. One I've heard of is, I think, called "The Wave". I have no idea how well, or even if, it works.

Reply to
krw

No, I'm not talking about 'electrostatic air filters', I'm talking about the equivalent of smokestack scrubbers. Similar names, different stuff. Electrostatic air cleaners ionize and collect organic molecules... and it takes an ion generator to do that (corona on thin wires). So-called 'electrostatic air filters' use an electret (kinda like a permanent magnet) to collect dust.

Reply to
whit3rd

Even if the vapors are not at the correct stoichiometric ratio for an explosion, they're still flamable. Using a correctly rated fan is simple common sense.

Reply to
Scott Lurndal

Scrubbers don't remove VOCs, though. Their purpose is to grab particulates.

Reply to
krw

Source? (For the "collect organic molecules" part, not for the "corona on thin wires" part. )

Reply to
J. Clarke

There's an upper and lower bound for combustibility, "stoichometric ratio" doesn't enter into it.

Reply to
J. Clarke

Apparently one needs to search for 'electrostatic precipitator' to get any hits. Wikipedia article leads to this paper, which seems relevant, if somewhat limited in scope

To remove volatiles effectively, you need to trap them, either chemically or in a solvent, at the collecting plates.

Reply to
whit3rd

That paper says that silicone sprays will wreck your precipitron, not that a precipitron is an effective method of removing organic molecules.

Reply to
J. Clarke

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