Finishing Fumes in a Basement Shop

[Dave Verstraete]

I'm just wondering where everyone that has a basement shop does their finishing. I'm tired of smelling it throughout the whole house. In the shop in my basement, I only have 2 small windows. It is a full basement without daylight windows. If I rig up a fan, I will be pulling all of the A/C out of the house. If you have a solution, I'm all ears.

[Richard Hutchings]

Waterborne finishes. Not that I'm an expert but that's where I'm headed. I bought some EM1000 and EM6000 to try. I'm almost ready to start spraying a project with it.

[Howard Acheson]

Unless you have an efficient paint booth or real good cross ventilation, you should change to waterborne finishes or spray outdoors.

[Peter Quinn]

I have 3 12X24" windows, I put an attic vent fan in one, built a series of plastic wrapped ladder frames to create a small isolation area, I finish in this room, turn on the fan, open another window to create make up air, and get the heck out of there if its stinky stuff. I stick to wipe ons or shellac that flash off pretty quickly so i dont need to run the fan for too long. I don't spray anything solvent based save a small amount of rattle can primer on occasion. Using the same booth arrangement I spray water borne as much as possible. I still need the fan, but the smell is diminished, as is the risk I imagine.

As far as heat exchange, I accept that as a cost of doing finishing. Even if you built a dedicated shop not connected to the house it would require heating and probably cooling to create the best finishing environment certain times of e year, and venting it outside would add a cost to your heating and cooling load. When spraying water born I run the fan during actual spraying and for about 10 minutes afterward to remove over spray, encourage air flow that leads to curing, and to avoid creting a fog situation in my basement. After I shut off the vent fan I run a small box fan just to encourage air flow so the finish dries quicker. It's not a perfect situation, but it's livable in my case.

[Chad Bender]

I build things in the basement. But I don't finish in the basement, at least not if the outside temp is reasonable. I'm lucky that I have a screen enclosed room on the back of my house that I can finish in (with appropriate tarps and newspaper protecting the floor). That keeps the fumes outside and provides airflow to aid drying.

[Jeff Duncan]

If you have 2 windows open them both and put an exhaust fan in one of them. As long as you don't have the door from basement to house open it should pull the air from the open window and have little affect on your house temp.

good luck,
JeffD

[robert morrison]

A good seal around the basement door at the top of the stairs will help.

I boxed in a small window with wood. There is a small door in the top middle of the box to reach thru to open and close the glass awning style window. . Going into the box is a short 4" diameter galvanized duct pipe. On the room side of the pipe is a blast gate then a frame with a small electric fan like this one at radio shack. http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2102825

This common fan can be found for much less $ as it is common in computers and electronic devices. I use a toggle switch to turn it on. The fan is permenatly in place but the window is kept closed when not in use. No reason to heat the outdoors in the winter

my .02