Those painting in garage, how are you venting air?
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I’m currently using a wooden frame with 8 20x20in A/C filters. Four of the squares have a cheapo 20in box fan sitting in front of them blowing air through the filter outside the garage. The garage door comes down on top of the frame.
I’m doing a good job of keeping dust out of the paint, but in my opinion I’m not getting the fumes out fast enough for it to be a safe environment since I have not made any special enhancements to the fluorescent lighting or compressor electricals.
I’m thinking I need some type of air intake on the opposite side, but the garage doesn’t have any opening in that wall other than the door that leads inside.
I’m also wondering if it would help if I took two of the fans off the floor and moved them up and closer to the object being sprayed to direct the spray to the two fans left on the floor exhausting.
Any thoughts?
welcome to the club.
there’s always the issue of those little box fans not being sealed motors, but I’ve used them for a long time and haven’t had one blow up yet.
you really do need an intake, with warm air coming in. it will take some getting fancy in most cases.
I got some sealed vaportight housings for my 8′ strip lights. works good keeping the bulbs sealed up, and you can scrub them down when I hose my water proof walls. HOWEVER – you need to spray mask them to keep the overspray off.
Thanks Bob for the welcome.
I understand the box fans not having sealed motors. I only shoot small items like helmets, so a spray session for me lasts maybe 5 min at most. I don’t have a huge cloud being built up, but would like to keep the fumes flowing as much as possible.
How big of an intake is needed in your opinion to provide the garage? Are we talking one 20×20 square, or a floor to ceiling window?
a real booth usually has an intake running 4′ wide down most of the entire length of the booth, and the entire floor is a grate for the exit air. a small filter area means higher speed of air, and that’s not good.
If you’re spraying small stuff it would be best to build a mini booth just big enough for what you’re doing. that way you can control the air easier.
I am using an exaust fan from TSC. I cut a hole in the wall down low, built a box around it with a furnace filter in front of it. My intake is an old squirrel cage fan in the top of the garage with a flex line duct running over to my gable vent for fresh air. Its cold air so its not good for the winter.
Thanks Underpaid,
You get that 24″ 1/3hp 4000cfm from TSC? What size garage is one of those venting?
Aren’t those cheap box fans rated at 2000cfm each. I have 4, but I bet I’m not seeing max exhause because of a pressure issue since I don’t have an input.
What about something like this:
http://www.industrialfansdirect.com/IND-FA-HL-ARE/SP-ARE160A-EXP.html
Then I could just put filters in the frame that the garage door comes down on for intake and this would be exhausting up.
You can buy explosion proof fans from Autobody toolmart a lot cheaper than that.
Back in the day I bought a whole house fan from home depot mounted it high on the wall, then built a box around it and extended that to the floor so it pulled from down low. put some filters in front of the box, unscrewed the windows from the overhead doors and taped some filters in front of those for the intake air. worked like a charm.
However as a disclaimer.. you should always use an explosion proof fan.Cheapest I’m seeing is $550 at Autobody toolmart.
http://www.autobodytoolmart.com/search/search.aspx?keywords=explosion
Thanks
[quote=”Gon3R” post=15839]Cheapest I’m seeing is $550 at Autobody toolmart.
http://www.autobodytoolmart.com/search/search.aspx?keywords=explosion
Thanks[/quote]
thats at least cheaper the the $859 one you linked to 😉two speed 24 inch barrel fan works on a budget.
been using one for 7 years.
89 bucks at Home Depot. :blush:My exaust fan is the 1/2 HP, 18″ 3000CFM. Its not the biggest because I wanted more positve pressure than neg. Yes its not explosion proof, I wish I had the cash for one. Im just living on the edge I guess!:blush: My garage is 25 wide by 30 deep and I have a curtain down the middle and I paint in one side of it.
This is totally not suppose to be done!!!…I had a guy come resurface my bathtub. I then asked him for the MSDS sheet for the material he was spraying and what do you know Isos and the VOC’s were in the 4.7 lbs/gal range. Well, at this point the wheels are turning since I was at that very moment converting my garage into a paint area. This is what he was using for exhaust –> http://www.harborfreight.com/8-inch-portable-ventilator-97762.html (he had one of these in the bathroom with an exhaust hose running outside through my son’s bedroom).
I can’t remember the actual material since it’s been a while that he was spraying, but it looks just like unreduced paint. So, I bought five of these fans (about 7,500 cfm exhaust built into a box and placed below the garage door). Then I put two 20″ box fans (high) for intake in an attempt to maintain a negative pressure situation in the paint area (7,500 – 4,000 = -3500) and one open space that just has a filter in front of it so the five fans can pull extra air if they like.
The intake and open flow filter comes from the other side of the garage so that I can pull heat in from a heater in the winter and air conditioning from an in window air conditioner in the summer. A couple days ago, it was in the twenties in the midwest and it was 78 F in the paint area. The summer has yet to give me a response as I have not tested it in the summer yet.
fans inside the box.
I have not taken pictures of the intake air yet, but will get around it sooner or later. I also haven’t tested this on an entire car paint job either, but have tested it with dry ice and it flows well.
set it up so you van put some filters infront of the exhaust fans to catch the overspray. that way you wont be caking up the motor or blades 😉
Yep Ding…have some filters ready for the back of it so the air will be pulled through the filter as opposed to pushed out to avoid over spray from even getting into the tube. Thanks.
As an add-on, I use an Iwata LPH400 so overspray is very minimal in my limited experience with this gun. It’s kind of slow, but the lack of overspray makes up for the reduced spray speed (not a production type situation for me).
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