Replies

1. 
   DelDollens | Jul 05, 2002 11:39pm | #1

   My home is an older home with one of those rooms in the basement dedicated to coal storage.  I converted that room (about the same size as yours, maybe a little smaller) into a spray booth.  I mounted an exhaust fan to the coal chute and have had no problems with smelling fumes in the rest of the basement.  The problem with having it in the house (besides the obvious safety issues) is that my main shop is a detached 3-car garage (no cars allowed) and I must transport my workpieces beter than 100 feet to spray them.  One good thing is the climate control in the house is better than the one in the garage (not for long).  I do not know the CFM of the fan...it was one I had left over and puts out quite a bit of airflow.  Are you an amateur or pro?  If you are a pro, do you have employees?  These may be the detarmining factors regarding the safety of a manufactured booth vs. shop-built booth.

   -Del

1. 
   Paul_Snyder | Jul 06, 2002 12:35am | #2

   Andy Charron's book "Spray Finishing" has a basic layout for a home made spray room.

   On the subject of fresh air-supply; make sure the opening is large enough to re-supply the space with the CFM that you are exhausting. The exhaust air has to be replaced or the exhaust air flow will be greatly reduced (all that air has to come from somewhere and you can't draw a vacuum on your space).

   Grainger.com has some "pad holding frames" and a variety of filter media you can use to construct your own exhaust chamber. Go to their site and search using "pad holding frames" to see what they look like. Some of the filter media comes in a roll that you cut to length - this can be less expensive. You can construct a wall from 2x4s and place the frames from floor to ceiling between 2 studs to form the exhaust filter trap (screw the frames to the studs). If needed, you can do this side by side to form the same type of filter bank you see in a commercial booth.

   For lighting, you can either buy spray booth lights or regular flourescents and make a frame to seal the light behind glass (with a gasket and hinges so you can replace the bulbs). If you plan to spray water-base (my recommendation), explosion hazards won't be an issue (neither will fumes). Place the light switch and fan switch outside the room. Place the HVLP outside the room also and run the hose(s) through a small opening in the wall.

   If desired (if dust is a problem), make a door to the room that is cut out to hold more of the filter frames so that the air entering the spray room is filtered.

   Paul

   F'burg, VA

1. 
   MikeAntonucc | Jul 06, 2002 08:19pm | #4

   Paul

   Thanks for the ideas, I ordered the book and will read it next week and start coming up with a design assuming I get enough information. Several of the articles I have read have suggested that you should not draw air form your shop but rather from an air handler. Do you have any thoughts on this and can you hazzard a guess at what it might cost to construct a booth 11 x 11 using standard building materials. I am assuming I will use T8 flourescent fixtures in my sealed boxes, I have a very powerful attac fan that I was planning on using to draw air into the room from the upstairs portion of the barn. I still need an exhaust fan. 

1. 
   Paul_Snyder | Jul 06, 2002 11:18pm | #5

   You already have an 11x11 room - so all you need is an exhaust fan, some filters in front of the fan to collect overspray, sealed lights, and a way to re-supply the air you exhaust. Here's a picture of an open face spray booth showing the filter set-up at the back.

   View Image

   The blue section at the inside back of the booth is the filters. If you construct a wall a couple feet from your exterior wall where the exhaust fan is mounted, you can use the filter frames between the studs to make your own filter bank. The wall you build doesn't have to be as wide as the entire room - you can make it the width of a single row of filter frames (floor to ceiling) or two side by side. Here's a sketch of a simple 2x4 frame wall you can make using the filter frames like the ones from Grainger.

   View Image

   You can see it only takes 8-10 2x4s and a number of the frames to make the exhaust filter chamber. The filters on the side are optional - but it makes it pretty easy to get to the fan for maintenance/repair.

   You don't need to force air into the space, the exhaust fan will draw air into the room through a filtered opening in the opposite wall/ceiling. You do need an opening to the exterior of the building to draw air into the building to replace the air you are exhausting. As far as the air handler goes, its a big expense. If you exhaust warm air in the winter and draw cold replacement air from outside your entire spray room or shop (depending on where your air supply is) will get cold pretty quick. Air make-up units heat the air as it enters the building with a huge gas heater - big $$ for the unit and the gas.

   Paul

   F'burg, VA

1. 
   MikeAntonucc | Jul 07, 2002 06:14am | #6

   Paul

   Great drawings, thanks! I am planning on exposing a 2 x 2 filtered opening in the ceiling opposite the filter wall for the incoming air. That opening opens into the top of the barn which is a full 8' high and has vented panels open all year around to store mostly dried wood. Plenty of warmth from the sun beating on the roof and great air flow up there.

   Thanks again for the great suggestions, I'll keep you informed of my progress over the next few weeks.

2. 
   Paul_Snyder | Jul 07, 2002 05:24pm | #7

   I'm glad you could make sense of the drawing! Your idea for re-supply air sounds good. Here's some sources for an exhaust fan;

   http://www.grainger.com

   http://www.sprayshield.com

   http://www.bencosales.com

   http://www.mcmaster.com

   From your description of your building, it sounds like you could cut openings in the ceiling of your spray room, cover the holes from above with a piece of plexiglass or glass sealed with caulk, and set the light fixtures on top of the glass. You'd have to replace the bulbs from the attic. This would save you the trouble of building/buying sealed frames that can be opened from inside the spray room.Paul

   F'burg, VA

2. 
   MikeAntonucc | Jul 06, 2002 04:05am | #3

   I love the bit about a 3-car garage (no cars allowed)! I have 5 bays total between the barn & garage and I don't have cars in any of them. I am a computer type person by trade these days although back in the 80's I hung out a woodworking shingle for a year or so. I probably do 6 projects a year not counting the hunny due list so this is decidedly a non-professional thing with no employees.