A question on ventilation
 

Forgive me if I am posting in the wrong area however I have looked through and it seems the likely place .
I have recently being having worry’s about my ventilation and if it is adequate I lampwork for maximumum 3 hours a day and that’s only a few times a week My current setup I have included pictures. It is a side shed built onto my house with one opening door. I have the Tufnell glass extraction unit ,I fume with the top door open and a fan hanging in that site . Below is description of the extraction unit from the website.
(This silent extraction kit is a powerful silent and non vibrating unit that can fit on top or below your bench . The kit comes complete with 5mtrs of flexible hose to attach from the galvanised steel hood , 5mtrs of flexible hose to attach to the rear of fan to vent out fumes and the 3 clips needed to join everything together .The fan has a wired plug with its own on /off switch to operate the fan . The fan is powerful enough to extract over 31 ltrs of air per second which is more than powerful enough for a studio in a garage , shed or spare room ,this is 110m3 per hour. Larger fans are available by order and twin /triple units can be designed tooAttachment 167803

Attachment 167804

Attachment 167805

looks like you have more than enough ventilation to me. I do always have two huge garage doors open when I work. I use soft glass only so I don't know if using boro changes the requirements.
della

Sounds good. Replacement air should be pulled in from behind you over your shoulders.

My personal test is this: I want to feel exactly the same when leaving a torching session as when I went in except for maybe a little tired. NO headaches, No eye strain, NO sore throat, No coughing, No tightness in chest, no burning like a sunburn on my face or arms etc.

I would say if your are using any glass that has any of the super harmful additives like gold, silver, lead, cadmium etc. please wear a respirator either a full or half mask. I ALWAYS wear at least a half mask.

If you are going to be working with frits or frit powders or even worse pixie dust which is so finely ground it actually will float in the air for a long time, wear a respirator for sure.

When you look at the particles of frit powders under a powerful microscope you will see they are not round but very sharp and jagged. They embed in your lungs and stay there and can cause health problems.

Good job getting after it. I wish more people would do this.
Stay safe and have fun.\\:D/

Respirator yes. This was my final purchase and I think for my own peace of mind (im a worrier) I’m going to go ahead and do it , lm developing the symptoms you list as I read them :). Thanks for the replies.

Have you tried the joss stick test? Put it near your torch, and check the smoke vanishes up the ventilation system rather than wafting around the space.

I've never seen a torch pointing towards an open door before, but I suppose there's no reason not to. At least people won't creep up behind you when you're working :D

a smudge stick is a fairly easy way to see if its pulling the fumes away from you.
your local new age shop should have some, its just a bunch of dried sage bundled together so you maybe able to raid the herb garden yourself.

Had a bit of a move around the open door was working against me so now torch towards the wall , my fan was as low as a bathroom extractor so am investing in a 1000cfm extraction rate or thereabouts as currently it is only removing 63 cfm so a bit worrying a specially using the
Boro glasses that I have quite heavily metalled but hopefully I can get all this sorted over the next week

I am not sure that boro is any more of a hazard than soft glass but I am really really glad you are changing from 63 cfm ( which is barely OK for toilet odors I suppose) to a 1000 cfm fan.

Mostly you want to remove the fumes from burning torch gases but you also want to remove it fast enough to carry any possible colorants that can be heavy metal particles that can 'out gas' while the glass is boiling in the flame.
Cadmium and lead are not going to be good to have falling as dust on the torch bench or in the air as dust motes to be inhaled.

If you can change the rough walled flexible ducting for hard sided ducting you can improve how much air actually gets out the other end by as much 5 or 10 times.

The roughness of the flexible ducting slows the air movement inside and effectively reduces the size of the ducting and can pretty much change it from 8 inches at the input down to an inch and a half at the other if the length is over 10 feet.

I will be changing to a smooth wallled galvanised hard ducting, I am looking to create the hood to around 2 foot by 2 foot with 200mm ducting. Struggling for hoods so my new thought is a steel bin cut out so that the bin can come down at the back to almost bench height but not sure if I’m settling with that as an idea but is the best one yet

Speedslug if you could look at my workings

Hood will be 2ft x 2ft so volume is 4 square foot x125 is 600 cfm baseline So with 200mm ducting im guessing around 1000 cfm fan should be ok for this set up .

Attachment 167860

Attachment 167861. Torch bench now faces that wall and hoping that “bin hood “will come down covering a lot of the sides and back. Seems quite close to the wall but not sure on safe distances and if this is adequate

Taking your comment to heart - as I'm new to bead making - I do have ventilation in my studio added especially for my torch but I'm not sure I have an optimal set up yet as I have noticed a sore throat lately - so thinking I need to wear a respirator - is there one you would recommend that is lightweight and comfortable enough to work in?

Thanks June