My wife and I are planning to move to the mountains of NC and build a house. I want to have a basement workshop, but my dad has raised his concerns about spontaneous combustion, in front of my wife.
Is it safe to have a workshop in my basement and what special precautions should I take?
Replies
Your lumber and workshop will not spontaneously combust. Some finishing products can combust if not handled properly. I am not talking about finish applied to a project, but rather the byproducts of the process like rags soaked with finish.
Some finishing products cure through oxidation which creates heat as a byproduct of the curing reaction. on a wood surface thais will not be felt. BUT, a rag soaked with finish balled up and left to "dry" can generate considerable heat inside and can combust.
There are simple ways to protect your home. 1: spread the rags our to dry to avoid heat buildup. (I hang mine on the edge of a metal trash can). 2: buy and use a fireproof trash can. 3: take the rags outside immediately and let them dry there. 4: ...well you get the idea. Common sense will protect you if excercised.
If there are objections to having the finishes in the basement you can get a safety cabinet for storage of flammables.
Get your Dad ballet tickets for Fathers' day and make sure you give them to him in front of your Mom.
I have had my shop in the basement for 15 years. My saw is a couple feet from the furnace. several gallons of finish. The only issue I have is I need to clean the burner assembly twice a year. The dust builds up on the flame sensor and it does not work properly. Add a air cleaner has made it much better. I am with MJ, I always take all my rags outside, that is the biggest fire risk.
As I said ad nauseum I only work with oils. I do 1 of 2 things with used rags. I either throw them in a bucket of water or leave them on the floor in the middle of the room by themselves.
Suffice it to say the floor's concrete and there's no air movement if I don't have a fan on. Shop's in the basement. My biggest problem is washing them. It's a pain but I have to do that by hand. Don't want to foul up the washing machine.
Mikaol
Other than fitting a heat alarm, there should be no concerns.
Rags are only a risk if you have a lot of them piled up together. Don't do that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H02uEcR3Ato
One wet rag with linseed oil thrown in a garbage can can self ignite, it’s happened to me, in a basement.
Having a basement shop you get all of the finishing fumes in the house and then there is a problem of all the dust. If you have very good dust collection that should not be too much of a problem. If you have a walk out basement then getting wood into the shop should not be a problem, if not have a removable casement window then the wood can slide down to the basement, if not you have to take it through the house and this is why my wife told me to build a separate shop in our retirement home.
I installed a vent fan in my basement shop to deal with any fumes. My wife has the nose of a blood hound. Before the fan, she would complain about fumes even if I barely cracked open the can. Now (if I remember to turn the fan on), no complaints.
I agree on concerns for finishing choices only. The dust collector explosion in a home shop myth has been busted so many times it is getting boring. Now, if you plan on spraying high VOC material without a proper setup, you can blow yourself up in or out of the basement ;-)
I agree with the preceding advice on oil & finishing cloths; my primary concern is airborne dust - it will not spontaneously combust, but it will migrate into the upper floors either through a forced-air HVAC system or simple opening and closing of doors and human movement into and out of the basement.
Most residential HVAC system blowers are not built to, and therefore struggle to, pull air through high-efficiency filters, even though we use these filters (this results in less CFM through the system). So, I don't recommend adding better filters on your system to capture wood dust. You may want to look at better capture-at-source tools & equipment.
The issue of spontaneous combustion would be the same in any shop, building, shed, factory, etc. It has nothing to do with being in a basement. If he's implying the living space above a basement would be in danger, the millions of us with basement shops have managed to avoid fire and death with the same reasonable precautions you would take anywhere.
Interesting comment... Not sure whether that is intended to be funny or dismissive...
Dust transmitted through an hvac system is a sure way to have an angry significant other; as well as simply being a nuisance, if it occurs.
You ask if there are things to consider with a basement shop... ambient dust is one of them.
A one person shop in the basement can be safe.
But the dust and fumes in the living space can be a real problem. Since it sounds like your house is still in the design phase, I'd spend a few hours with your architect to try and separate the air handling. For example, a small shop could be sealed from the rest of the building and heated with wall mount electric heaters (i.e. no open flame) that are separate from the main furnace. You could also easily add sound proofing at this point.
This also involves heating, and air conditioning, in the shop, and the house, at large. Typically, basements have minimal natural airflow through windows and doors. Heating should be via non-open flame sources, be it radiant electric or forced-air (assuming the furnace is not in close proximity). AC is a bit different, in that you want to ensure that dust fines are not clogging air intake.
I use a commercial radiant heater (dual-element, 3,000w) arrangement, and am quite satisfied with it.
Hey,
The only thing my wife complains about is the awful smell of certain wood. Cocobolo being the worst offender. Brazilian coffeewood, on the other hand smells like cocoa when it's being worked.
I don't have a dust problem, either. Except it getting in what's left of my hair. As I said earlier, there's no air movement in the basement.
Don't use me as a model. I let dust settle & clean it up later. I go through 2 or 3 shop vac bags a month. Beside, dust doesn't mystically make its way up the stairs so I'm not concerned about upward drift.
I only do finishing twice a week. Gives me plenty of time for cleanup. I throw the rags in water when I'm done with 'em or take them out and burn them. Watco makes for a good fire starter.
Mikaol
Put a mini split and have no mingling of shop air and house air. May also want to exit shop to outside and use air hose to blow off before entering the house.
If you can a separate building or garage shop is nicer in my opinion. Others have hit the safety issues which are not really an issue, but noise dust and fumes are anoying. Also hauling material and machines down stairs is not fun.
A lot of talk about the safety of finishing. Here are a couple other things to consider:
- Unless you have a walk out, you will have to get lumber and machines down there and finished projects out. It took 3 guys to get my old 15" Grizzly planer down there... it got a bit hairy at times, but now it's there to stay.
- Depending on the layout of your basement, in feed and out feed could be limited.
- Depending on the depth of your foundation, you may not get much natural light.
I built my new shop in the basement of our new home. The basement has a central HVAC system serving the entire area, so I had to think about fumes and dust. In designing the system, I had them use a larger return than supply in the shop, thus introducing s little negative pressure, to help prevent dust from leaving the shop.
Then, I located the dust collector near the supply end. All dust producing activities are on that end. It gives some distance from the return register for the air cleaner to operate. In front of the return register, I tape a piece of thin batting from the sewing shop. It is quite porous but traps most of any dust that gets past the collector and air cleaner. I change the filter monthly and it usually looks pretty clean. With the previous smaller air cleaner I sometimes used a piece over the intake to slow clogging of the filters and it really works well; just run the vac hose across it when it looks a little dark.
I do most of my heavy sanding outdoors on the patio, which really helps. Even n cold weather, I can finish most projects without too much pain. all spraying is done outdoors, period.
As for fire protection: I added a smoke detector in the shop, positioned over the breaker panel, since supposedly many fires start there. There are 2 extinguishers, - important - both are beside the door - get to the exit, then turn and fight the fire form a position of safety. Ask me how I learned that.
Storage of flammables is in an metal office supply cabinet; not a fireproof cabinet, but it was $25, vs. $700. Not perfect, but better than on a shelf.
Then spontaneous combustion. As a scientist, I once tried to make it happen (outdoors, of course) with rags impregnated with boiled linseed oil and tung oil, both oxidative curing finishes. The best I could do was to get them warm. I don't doubt that it CAN happen, but conditions would have to be just right....err, wrong.
Just some thoughts
I've had basement shops for the last 30 years. Spontaneous combustion can happen any where when using oil finishing materials and not disposing of oily rags properly. It shouldn't stop you from enjoying the benefits of a basement shop. I installed a spray booth in my basement which is really nice for finishing small to mid-sized objects any time of the year. If you're planning on building, try to build with a walk out basement. That's a real plus!
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled