I’ve got a question, and i was looking for it on the page but i didnt find anything.
So i just made my new room for glassing (inside room, so there is no ventilation) and im planing isolate entirely the whole room(its like 11ftx6ftx9ft, so its a small room), but i want to put a small extraction system inside. i dont want nervous neighbors because of the smell, and also want to care of my health. So my idea is applying ventilators on the wall and the produce a current inside and a small extractor which attached to a house with active carbon filter(i read that this kind of filter works pretty good in the case of vapors, odors, gases).
Anyone has some experience? Or can anyone tell me a good solution?
I’m not sure that I have anything to contribute on this - but, as a suburban garage boardbuilder, I am interested.
For what it’s worth, the mask I use has an activated carbon filter, and I don’t smell any styrene fumes through it. I have wondered whether a commercially available air purifier with an activated carbon filter would be effective.
Up to 500 ppm:
(APF = 10) Any chemical cartridge respirator with organic vapor cartridge(s)*
(APF = 10) Any supplied-air respirator*
Up to 700 ppm:
(APF = 25) Any supplied-air respirator operated in a continuous-flow mode*
(APF = 50) Any chemical cartridge respirator with a full facepiece and organic vapor cartridge(s)
(APF = 50) Any air-purifying, full-facepiece respirator (gas mask) with a chin-style, front- or back-mounted organic vapor canister
(APF = 25) Any powered, air-purifying respirator with organic vapor cartridge(s)*
(APF = 50) Any self-contained breathing apparatus with a full facepiece
(APF = 50) Any supplied-air respirator with a full facepiece
Emergency or planned entry into unknown concentrations or IDLH conditions:
(APF = 10,000) Any self-contained breathing apparatus that has a full facepiece and is operated in a pressure-demand or other positive-pressure mode
(APF = 10,000) Any supplied-air respirator that has a full facepiece and is operated in a pressure-demand or other positive-pressure mode in combination with an auxiliary self-contained positive-pressure breathing apparatus
Yikes. Did you mean PU resin or PE resin?
If you’re talking about using PE resin inside a dwelling, you need more than a respirator. The styrene fumes will permeate the whole place to noxious levels in mere minutes.
I’ve heard of nail salons installing recirculating air filtration systems to knock down the acetone fumes, but they’re pricey.
Now if you mean you’re glassing with polyurethane resin (like ResinX) I don’t know. I haven’t worked with it. I do, however, work with 2-part urethanes all the time and they all have pretty strong odors as well. Nothing I would want to bring inside my house.
For my room, 4mx2mx2m (16m3), i use a 900M3/h extractor and same intractor, and it’s the minimum, i only do finish coat with pe resin and use a vapor mask. Lam with epoxy.
Lemat, I heard that pe on top of Epoxy can chip or separate upon knocks or under flex, interested to hear your take on if you have had any problems with that.
no real problems, just “normal” spider cracks if board dinged, if you prep well surface: full cure compatible epoxy, some epoxy inhibit pe reaction, sand 40 to 80 grit max, good iso pe resin with low parafin styren content and lightly catalysed. Epoxy finish is for sure “stronger”
I would just go Epoxy as less fumes and smell. (maybe i’m biased)
But used to build boards at night underneath my house about 15 ft away from my next doors window in the middle of summer and they said that after I changed to new epoxies they didn’t really notice the smell that much even with their windows open.
An enclosed room you described even with epoxy you would still have work out an extraction system filtering the fumes - what about into water? Anyone done that type of extraction?
You could probably calculate the concentration of the fumes if you knew vapor pressure at your specified temp, then work out something with partial pressures with the other main components of air. Then you’d probably have to back calculate the amount of gas using some sort of gas law equation and mole fractions/partial pressures (you know all the stuff about regular air) to get a number, at which point you would sort of have what you needed to calculate concentration. There’d be a few assumptions to be made in doing this.
Basically you’re better off having a way to measure it.
I am doing epoxy for the compatibility with EPS and for the fumes too.
I thought if someone knew how to do the math for PPM for styrene-based resins that people could figure out how much more mask or fresh air is needed in their work space.
Edit: just saw the post from the good Dr. Z, probably best to measure actual versus calculate with assumptions.
There basically are no great options at the garage or small builder level, I assure you, I’ve studied them all. Your best option to get setup an a carbon filter, and the most affordable route is to use hydroponic filters. I had a few in use in my glass shop, and used one in my sanding room when I was painting to capture loose spray and fumes. I used a few sizes, but I’d recommend either a 8" or 10" unit that ends up weighing about 80lb. Fume reduction will be noticeable, but its use is dependent on how much glassing you are doing. I replaced mine every ~4 months and that was for production use in my 1 man shop. http://canfilters.com http://www.phreshfilter.com