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Safety -- Make sure you are safe!

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  #1  
Old 2005-10-05, 9:50am
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Default funny "plastic burning" smell? HELP

Hi, I have a basement studio which I put in in July of this year. I am using natural gas and two oxygen concentrators. I have a broan kitchen hood with double motors and the fan is 360cfm installed 30 inches from the table above my torch. There is one 90 degree turn in the ductwork and then it travels about 8 feet to an outside wall. My torch is a midrange burner. The kiln sits on a metal filing cab, which is covered in ciderblock and then fire brick a few feet to the right of my torch area. I am melting Boro and annealling hot beads at each torch session. I have a carbon monoxide/smoke detector on the ceiling of the basement in the center of the room (and of course a fire extinguisher right at my feet under the torch table) The table is covered with glavanized steel and there is steel on the wall behind the table. I thought this set up would be adequate. As far as makeup air, there is a window on the "finished" side of the basement that I keep open while torching and then I set up a fan in the doorway to the studio facing into the studio in hopes of drawing that fresh air from the other room in towards me.
While I am torching and the next morning there is no noticable odors in the studio of any kind. However, the next morning in the family room, which is the room right above where I am torching there is a strong "burning plastic smell". It's definately not the "chlorine" smell I have read about which would signal some nitrogen ox. It's plasticky kind of smell. Well I have been pondering how to remedy this problem even though I am not sure if it's a smell the kiln is giving off or if it is fumes from my torch. So, today, I went back to the sheet metal place and I am having them fabricate a 3 sided booth to put around the hood that I can secure to the table on 3 sides. I am hoping if there are vapors escaping upstairs through the ceiling/floor this will solve my problem. If the smell is still present my next move would be to get a stronger fan or maybe augnment the hood fan by putting a squirrel cage fan into the ductwork. Does that make sense?
Does anyone know what this smell is? I called Jen ken to ask about smells that anealing glass give off but they did not think it would be the glass in the kiln. By the way i do run my exhaust fan while the kiln is running through its cycle. Once the booth is installed then i am not sure I will bother since it will be much more self contained. If anyone has any thoughts about what else I could try I'd appreciate it. My fan seems to be doing it's job. It passes the match test and if I go outside while it's running the vent louvers are open. I know my ductwork is on the small side, 4 iches but the vent is directly on the front of my house and any larger than a dryer vent would look ridiculous. However safety is more important so if i have to get another fan then i realize my ductwork may have to grow too. here are some pictures of my current setup. I'm not afraid to take the criticsm that may be necessary to make this safer. thanks. also if folks feel that I need a stronger fan is there a way to augment my current hood rather than getting a new one since this one was expensive industrial fan bought through granger's.
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"I believe in pink, I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles."
— Audrey Hepburn

flaming away on a betta, natural gas, and 2 M-20's

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  #2  
Old 2005-10-05, 10:12am
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Paula - a couple of thoughts -

as Kimberly mentioned, it might be a contact or connection on the kiln. With the plastic smell, I'm wondering about the concentrators - have you checked them for warmth or overwarmth?

Another issue would be to check the 'total house' ventilation. You may be exhausting more air than is being brought in by the open window and back drafting one or more gas burning appliances, like a hot water heater or clothes dryer. To test this, open your window downstairs and turn on your fans as normal. Then go upstairs and open a window (on a non-windy protion of the house, we don't want any outside wind to affect this test). If you can feel air coming in, you aren't getting enough fresh air from the open window. If you can't feel any air, light an incense stick and to a draft test. If you are getting enough fresh air through the window downstairs, there should be no additional air coming into the house from the second open window.

(By the way, I've got the stub hose set built and on the way to you.)
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  #3  
Old 2005-10-05, 10:18am
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Ok, one more thought. In looking at your fan and ducting on the last picture, I see a potential problem - you are using corrigated ducting instead of smooth wall ducting. The material you are using isn't quite as bad as some I've seen, but you are losing about 10-15% of your exhaust efficiency with the ducting you are using - additionally, you are down-sizing the duct right at the vent hood - I really recommend that this isn't done - dropping the duct size significantly changes the back pressure in the system and combined with the corrigated ducting, you may only be exhausting about 50% of the air that the fan *could* exhaust with rigid ducting and large diameter.

You are passing the smoke test because *some* air is being pulled up and out, but not all of it. Check to see if the fan motor is running hot after an hour or so of continuous operation - this is a good way to see if a ventilation system is working too hard (pushing against too much pressure) - if the motor is hot, it's working too hard.
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  #4  
Old 2005-10-05, 10:37am
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Mike, Thanks for the suggestions. I actually bought the hard ductwork and my contractor returned it and bought what you see. You are right about it not being as flimsy as some of those dryer ducts you can buy that are practically tin foil. This ductwork is flexible but it is a decent metal. there are two beams that the duct needed to clear and the rigid stuff was going to require several more 90 degree turns to get passed the ceiling beams that's why we went with it. I also had a hard time finding a white vent cover for the outside of the house in a larger size than 4 inches and so the contractor recommended the 4 inch stuff. I had a bad feeing about it at the time after reading alot on WC but I let him do it.
If I am back drafting the hot water heater which is about 15 feet behind me across this room then would installing the metal box around the hood help that problem or make it worse?
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Paula AKA The Venerable Bead
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"I believe in pink, I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles."
— Audrey Hepburn

flaming away on a betta, natural gas, and 2 M-20's

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  #5  
Old 2005-10-05, 11:01am
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Won't change a thing - you have to supply MORE fresh air to stop the backdrafting.

It is possible to drop the ducting below the level of the beams?

The contractor who installed it should have known better (sigh)...they always want to take the easy way out - they bill the same rate but don't want to do the hard work.

A couple of 90 degree bends won't even equal the losses you are getting on the corrigated stuff.

Ok - I ran your system through my duct calculator. The ducting material you are using has a roughness equal to 25 times what flat galvanized metal has (surface roughness of flat galvanized = 0.00005", your duct = 0.00125". Combined with the 4" diameter of the duct, your fan is pushing against about 18" of static pressure. This is not good. If the duct was changed to 6 inch rigid with 4 90 degree bends, the total static pressure would be 0.13 inches.
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  #6  
Old 2005-10-05, 11:42am
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Thank you
Ok I need to fix this duct work. I'm on it.
How about getting more fresh air? how can I accomplish this?
What do you think that burned plastic smell is?
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Paula AKA The Venerable Bead
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"I believe in pink, I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles."
— Audrey Hepburn

flaming away on a betta, natural gas, and 2 M-20's

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  #7  
Old 2005-10-05, 11:55am
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one more quick question. Do you think if I change the ductwork to 6 inches rigid that the hood is adequate or do I still need to augment the fan somehow?
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Paula AKA The Venerable Bead
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"I believe in pink, I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles."
— Audrey Hepburn

flaming away on a betta, natural gas, and 2 M-20's

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  #8  
Old 2005-10-05, 12:38pm
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What are the dimensions of the hood (length and width)? For a hung hood whose sides don't go all the way down to the bench top like yours, multiply the square footage of the hood area times 125 CFM. That's the "ideal" fan size. If you can't get the "exact" size, get one that's close, but above. For example, if it turns out that you need a 385 CFM fan, and you can find a 360 CFM and a 410 CFM, go for the 410 CFM fan.

For more fresh air, you can do a couple of things: open another window, add a fresh air duct (8" round duct provides about 350 CFM of fresh air, unrestricted).

The odor could be coming from a number of places, but I suspect either the kiln, with a loose wire or connector, one of the concentrators possibly overheating, or, more likely, the vent hood fan itself running hot, given the numbers above. Once a motor is turned off, it is still hot and with the "fumes" having nowhere else to go, the will rise to the ceiling and into the room above. This is part of the problem of trying to diagnose something like this.

You are going to have to have things running for awhile and use the hand test - if something that should be only warm is running very hot, that thing should be your chief suspect.
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  #9  
Old 2005-10-05, 3:14pm
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um Mike?... If I was good at math I wouldn't be a social worker who makes beads in her spare time. You lost me with the formulas.
see how I'm doing so far:
I am going to change the duct work to rigid 6 inch
I am going to look into putting a fresh air duct somewhere on the studio side of the basement and
I am going to have that barley box installed.
I'm also going to check the kiln for the possible faulty contact and
check to see how hot the oxy cons and the exhast fan are getting while they are running.
Once I've done all that then I guess I will have to assess whether I need a bigger fan. couldn't I add one of those black and decker fans somewhere along the ductwork like mark w on WC talks about? in order to augment my current hood? Is that possible? I spent $250 on the current one and there's no way I want to scrap it and start over. I should have gone with the glasscraft to begin with but ya try to save a few bucks and... hindsight is always 20/20
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"I believe in pink, I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles."
— Audrey Hepburn

flaming away on a betta, natural gas, and 2 M-20's

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  #10  
Old 2005-10-06, 4:44am
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LOL! Ok - take a ruler and measure the width of the hood, and then the length of the hood. If it is in exact feet (for example, 3 foot by 2 foot) multiply those together, you get 6 square feet, then multiply 6 feet by 125 CFM, you get 750 CFM.

If the measurement is not in exact feet (for example 30" by 20"), multiply those numbers together (30 x 20 = 600) then divide by 144 (number of inches in a square foot) to get 4.16, multiply that by 125 and you get 520 CFM.

Use a calculator, that's what I do (grin).

No, I would not use the Mark Wilson fan idea. Adding a fan to a system that already has a fan will not solve the problem - you can only move as much air as the lowest cfm fan in the system, the other fan will only fight against the other.
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  #11  
Old 2005-10-08, 12:53pm
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ok this is what I have done so far. I had a booth made at a sheet metal shop and I installed it today. I now have to change out the 4 inch flexible duct work for 6 inch rigid and look into putting a fresh air duct somewhere on this side of the basement. Here's a picture of my new booth. It sure cuts down on space but hopefully it will be worth it.
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"I believe in pink, I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles."
— Audrey Hepburn

flaming away on a betta, natural gas, and 2 M-20's

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  #12  
Old 2005-10-08, 12:55pm
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here's a side shot.
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"I believe in pink, I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles."
— Audrey Hepburn

flaming away on a betta, natural gas, and 2 M-20's

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