# Solvent Saftey - Cold Weather



## jackson115 (May 28, 2014)

Hi Forum,

I have a small room in my basement I use for painting staining and solvents... Painting and staining are not a problem (water based)...

I use contact cement a couple time a week I have the can open about 15 minutes, let the glue tack up 15 minutes or so then the rest is laminating. These are not big projects at all such as a large counter top or anything, just small cabinet type boxes.

I have air tight this room ( small 8" x 7" x 6" ceiling )and run a large squirrel cage with parts outside the room pulling air out and outside a window... the fumes vent out great and I believe it is pulling the air out every 30 seconds or so...

My problem now is heat, it says contact cement and substrate needs to stay 65 degrees 24 hours before and 72 hours after... 

I do have forced gas heat and ducts with vents down there but heating the basement with window open gets expensive. I cannot find any kind of safe room heater that does not warn of sparking parts that I feel safe running in the room or would want to leave to chance.

Any ideas of the safest way to keep the room warm?

I am curious if an infrared heat light/light would be safe to use? before during and after gluing?

Also any ideas on how safe it would be to run a room heater after glue up? Such as can I turn on a room heater after the laminating is done and leave it on while the project dries? Or are dangerous fumes still accumulating?

Lastly does anyone know the potential for failures of contact cement when temperatures are below the 65 degrees for glue and substrate?

Thanks for any help as I have had no luck finding answers on the net...


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## difalkner (Nov 27, 2011)

There are explosion proof heaters available from about 0.5 Kw to as large as you want but they're likely expensive. If your water heater is in the basement or you have access to plumbing down there, you could consider a subfloor with radiant heating, even though you have a low ceiling now. There are online articles galore on building the manifold, subfloor, running the tubing, etc. You can also probably find electric radiant heating panels for the ceiling and maybe one or two of those will do the job for you.


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

With a room that small you could get away with using the heat lamps. Just be careful with fans. A regular electric motor creates sparks which can set off fumes and if the room is air tight that means boom. I don't even switch the lights when fumes are present. A light switch can make a spark. I turn the lights on and leave them on. What you could do is use any kind of heater and get the room and your parts good and warm and then shut it off and rely on the heat lamps. 

What will happen if the wood and glue drop much below 65 is it will soak into the substrate instead of making a film and then there won't be anything on the surface to bond with.


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## TomC (Oct 27, 2008)

You say you are pull the air out every 30 seconds or so. If you are pulling in 300 to 600 cubic feet of air every minute it is going to be hard to heat even a small space depending on the temperature of the replacement air. I hope your room is 7feet by 8feet not inches. I assumed that was a typo.
Tom


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## jackson115 (May 28, 2014)

*Thanks*

Lol, yeah 7 and 8 feet... held down the shift I guess... sorry about that...

I forget now but when I bought the blower and did the math I remember it was something like that , it cleared the room in under a minute at least might be ... Probably around 300 cubic feet of air every minute off the top of my head..

and the room is not perfectly air tight for like a negative pressure system or anything, Just I used heavy mil clear vinyl and really set it up to not let fumes out the room... It does a great job and I feel safe and good.. I am very aware of turning any lights on first and not using any tool or flipping and switches once in their and working...

Like a said the main problem is heat... I am not pulling cool air in, just pulling the fumes out... I can keep everything warm before for 24 hours and heat the room up but once I glue up the window needs to be open and blower exhausted the fumes for a few hours. 

I guess I will get a heat light and try that... How long once the contact cement is applied to the substrate, laminated and drying are fumes a potential danger... hours? days?

Thanks for the help and any ideas...


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## UnisawGuy (Jul 20, 2014)

Maybe a oil filled electric space heater?


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

jackson115 said:


> Lol, yeah 7 and 8 feet... held down the shift I guess... sorry about that...
> 
> I forget now but when I bought the blower and did the math I remember it was something like that , it cleared the room in under a minute at least might be ... Probably around 300 cubic feet of air every minute off the top of my head..
> 
> ...


If you are ventilating the room the fumes should be dangerous for the 15 minutes it takes for the glue to dry enough to stick the laminate. Once the laminate is stuck the danger is over. 

As far as your blower if it doesn't have an explosion proof motor it would be safer to blow clean air into your room than suck fumes out. That way the blower motor wouldn't be exposed to the fumes. Set up like that you could have a heater blowing toward the blower so it is drawing heated air.


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## TomC (Oct 27, 2008)

jackson115 said:


> Lol, yeah 7 and 8 feet... held down the shift I guess... sorry about that... I forget now but when I bought the blower and did the math I remember it was something like that , it cleared the room in under a minute at least might be ... Probably around 300 cubic feet of air every minute off the top of my head.. and the room is not perfectly air tight for like a negative pressure system or anything, Just I used heavy mil clear vinyl and really set it up to not let fumes out the room... It does a great job and I feel safe and good.. I am very aware of turning any lights on first and not using any tool or flipping and switches once in their and working... Like a said the main problem is heat... I am not pulling cool air in, just pulling the fumes out... I can keep everything warm before for 24 hours and heat the room up but once I glue up the window needs to be open and blower exhausted the fumes for a few hours. I guess I will get a heat light and try that... How long once the contact cement is applied to the substrate, laminated and drying are fumes a potential danger... hours? days? Thanks for the help and any ideas...


You are going to have a hard time pulling fumes out if you are not pulling fresh air in! When you start your exhaust fan with no replacement air coming in the room you will reach a slightly negative pressure in the room quickly. After that happens you will only be exhausting the slight amount of air leaking in the room. If the room is air tight like you say the fumes will stay in the room.
Tom


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## jackson115 (May 28, 2014)

*Thanks again*

Okay... thanks... 

To answer the first post, I have researched explosion proof heater but they are way to expensive for me right now.. This is a hobby type of thing pretty much not a full on production so I am trying to avoid the expense..

As far as "air tight" I misspoke a bit.. I meant I have guarded against fumes leaking out as much as possible but some fresh air from the house .. It is not airtight in the sense of some type of pressure system, so as fume air is being pulled out new air is being pulled in.

The fumes are nor passing by the fan... I have rigged the system so the fan and its electronics are outside the room and the squirrel cage I bought I made sure the fumes are not pulled past the motor... It is not "explosion proof" but I did enough research and saw other experienced people using this and I feel quite safe with it...

I was just running fans when I first started and after 2 days my wife said "no way" The fumes smell was through the upstairs.. Once I set up the new fan system she cannot smell the fumes at all (she is very sensitive to it) So I feel good about it .. the first time I did 2 units which I never did before and she said she could never tell , there where no fumes.. Last night I did a couple with the heat pumping in the house and temps outside below 50 degrees... I was able to keep the temp in the room above 65 with the window open and blower ... I turned the blower off after about 30 minutes after glue up , we went out , came home and she smelt fumes... I usually leave the blower running a couple hours after glue up when heat is not an issue.. 

So i definitely am going to have to keep using the blower for a bit after glues up... 

Thanks again for the help and any ideas!


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