Acetone and heating your shop?

[mmered8299]

I spray sealers with acetone in my shop and now that is getting cooler I want to keep the heat on. My problem is the acetone is extremely flamable. I have been turning off the heaters when I spray, blow out the fumes and turn off the heater. One of these day me or my help will forget and FLASH!

 

[MXtras]

Dude - you need to vent the fumes out while you are spraying the sealer - not after. You are messing with some of the most flammable vapors there are.

I have no suggestions for ya and I doubt you will find anyone in the HVAC field that will recommend anything other than a class1, div1 heating system and those are a bit on the costly side.

I would seriously look into making a ventillation system for your spraying thereby removing the explosion hazard. This would open up your heating options. otherwise it might get really hot really fast in your space.

Scott

 

[Dragster Racer]

I would have to agree. My current workplace finishes around 200 kitchen cabinets per day, and when we do touch up of a repair away from the finish area, the fumes are quite bad, and bad for you. I can tell you that heavy exposure even for short bursts can cause a serious sinus chemical burn without a respirator. Don't ask how I know. I would concentrate less on the heating system and more on a hood for over your work area to evacuate the fumes. Just elminate the source of trouble. We take it for granted how dangerous acetone can be since we work with it every day. It can bite you though. In our chemical vault, where we store our stains and most of all the acetone, we don't allow radios, cell phones or any explosion proof motors. I don't think you need to worry that much, but do use a hood to evacuate.

 

[6768rogues]

In such a facility the heating unit is put in an area that is completely separated and sealed from the work area. The heater room could be separated by 2-hour fire resistant construction that is air and vapor tight and that has a dedicated entrance from outside with no openings from the furnace room to the work area. Then hot water is used for heat by piping it to a fan coil with an explosion proof fan in the work area (or fin tube).
An alternative is to erect a small separate building for the heating unit and use hot water heat through an explosion proof fan coil or with radiant fin tube.

 

[Dragster Racer]

You must be referring to the vault. We didn't make it that complicated. The vault has vans (explosion proof) that pull air out of the room to the outside. We just have some filtered openings to the heated building that allow warm air to come in. Works suprisingly well. You really have to move a lot of air in a facility like this. Keeping fumes out of the vault is important. Every spray booth is evacuated. Even the dust collector pulls a huge amount of air from the building. Nothing like starting up a couple hundred hp electric motor to pull dust out!
But back to the problem at hand: Just fab up a simple hood to get your fumes out and you will be fine.