Ventilation: My temp. situation - ok?

danawana · #1 2006-11-21, 9:30am

I am a beginner in bead making. I have set up my area in the basement, in front of the basement window. My basement window is larger than normal. It's approx a 2'sq opening when opened, not total window. I have a strong fan hanging right in the window. The fan is just about the same diameter as the window opening. I can tell there's a lot of airflow out, because it's very cold outside, and when I turn on the fan, I feel absolutely no cold coming in. My torch is approx. 5' from this window. Maybe less. It's a small basement, I don't know if that makes a difference. We plan to set up a better system, but have to figure it out and buy it all. Is this ok temporarily? There is a door at the top of the basement stairs, but it's always closed, I have animals to keep away. Would it make a big difference if the door were open? I was thinking of maybe putting a "thing" in the door for airflow (can't think f what it's called - you know, like something open but covered by a grid, or whatever)... I know this is very un-scientific, but I have also burned an incense near the torch, so I can see if I can smell the incense if there is any airflow back toward me, and I can see where the smoke from it goes. Seems to flow out very well.

BTW, I am using mapp gas on a hothead. I am looking to switch to chemolene in the near future.

If I were able to get even closer to the window/fan, would that also help? I just don't want to worry about the fumes in the basement, or being distributed throughout the house by the furnace... The furnace is about 10' away, in the same open space.

I have seen a video of a guy giving a beadmaking demo on youtube. He has a vent pipe right past the end of his flame. It seems it would be easy to have this setup, rather than a hood? Budget is a concern, but health first, of course.

So basically, the main question is - is this pretty decent? At least temporarily?

MikeAurelius · #2 2006-11-21, 11:41am

For a temporary installation, I'd make the following changes:

1 - block the remainder of the window so that fan can't bypass -- block it with cardboard or styrofoam. Tape the seams, and essentially make it so that no air can pass back anywhere into the room.

2 - you didn't mention what your fresh air source is -- so I'm going to assume you don't have one. This is very important - you need a source of fresh air to replace what you are pushing out the window, and it has to come from at least 10 feet away from the exhaust fan. If there is another window in the basement, I'd open that.

Your distance is ok, providing you take care of the issues pointed out above. A lot of people work with less than that, so on the whole, for a temporary installation, it sounds ok to me.

I really don't recommend using a open duct pipe as your suction for a ventilation system. The purpose of a hood or other workstation unit is to trap all the fumes so they can be exhausted. An open vent pipe will only pull from directly in front of the pipe, not from the surrounding area. Every time you put glass into the flame, you are deflecting the flame and pushing streamers of flame plasma and glass fumes in a different direction. Those need to be trapped as well.

If you do some research here on LE and AGA and AGF you will find a lot of detailed information to help you get started when you are ready to design and build your next vent system.