For all who spray finishes, how do you handle it in the winter?
And I’m not talking about the big shops that have 1,000,000+ BTu heat make-up units. I may be building a shop soon for just me, no employees, and want to find information and/or opinions on the best way to provide the heat for spraying different kinds of finishes – nitro, water based, & oil paint.
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The answer to this may depend on the type of material you will use to spray. I mainly use lacquer. Here in Oregon it gets down to 20 -30 degrees . I use an electric forced air furnace. This way there is no open flame i.e. pilot light or whatever. With lacquer the temp is not as important as the moisture in your shop. Sure it dries sooner when it is warmer . I heat the shop to about 65 degrees and am able to get consistant results.All year round.My area that gets heated is about 1400 sf and the most my electric bill runs for full time use of the shop is about $150.00 a month . This may sound like a lot but consider 4 - 40 hour weeks , it is about $1.00 an hour to stay warm and toasty .I used to use a kerosene space heater blower , very smelly and real loud , and not alot cheaper to run.But the open flame is not good.
I hope this helps Dusty
Any kind of open flame poses a problem apart from explosion which could really provide hours of entertainment for the neighbors and rehab for you.Namely what are you producing when you combust these complex chemicals ?They may well be very hazardous to you and it is unlikely that the materials data sheet will tell you.Also the local fire marshal may get exited.
Trust me - I'm not advocating and open flame near finishes. I am curious how most people heat, though. I've heard of some pretty dangerous situations, but there must be several different ways to heat among the safer choices. I think most people are not going to admit the stupid unsafe things they've done, and I don't blame them!
Does anyone know if radiant floor heat would provide any significant amount of heat when the air is being exhausted immediately after entering the building? I'm sure you'd need a separate heat source, but would RFH help at all? I'm thinking about having RFH for general heating purposes, and supplemental heat for finishing.
You may get a better answer from breaktime on radiant floor heat, but from what I remember the slab temperature is usually about 100 F so it is a really gentle heat, certainly my friends conservatory is very pleasant to work in as I have been trimming out the interior.I think that it would be great for a workshop but not a booth.However if you are using hydronic heat perhaps you could run a high temperature loop off the boiler into a fan powered heat exchanger for spraying. I think that a zoned hydronic system with high and low temp loops will probably make some sense though I am not a heating engineer.
Hmm, I hadn't thought of that. I'll have to do some investigation. That's why I ask on the forum! Thanks
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