So I just got my very first shop :). I opened up a can of resin to coat something and now the entire shop smells from a 3ft part… My office is on the second floor which is where I stay right now until I can get an apt so I don’t want to contaminate the entire area. There is no vents in the building. So no air in or out unless I open the door. Its 30 degrees right now… I understand there might be no fast way of getting this done, but how can I filter the air to keep the smell of the fumes minimal?
you can buy filtration systems that use carbon filters, will cost few grand for each one, depending on the size you may need a couple or more.
I would build a separate room just for the smelly jobs using a fan with a filter driving the air out of the building.
^ Good idea! The both of you, thanks!
The way I did it from my garage was buy a bunch of that sheeting and make a tent. Tape most of it to the floor, add a vent and force the air out. Got rid of most of the smell but some of it still managed to get into the house
No ventilation at all is a bad environment for people, whether splashing polyester around, or doing desk work (sick building syndrome).
At least get some ventilation around, keep in mind that styrene sinks, and many other fumes tend to rise.
Another option is to use a styrene suppressing spray. But these units are not very cheap, and the styrene is still around.
In the above I presumed you are working with polyester…
this is what i did, but in my basement…
built the room by a window.
my room is around 550 cubic feet and the fan i have moved 740 cfm - keeps the stink next to nothing.
Thanks for the help guys! Since I’m using polyester resins I guess that does help with the smell since herman said the styrene sinks. But what I did was I sealed the office door with door gaskets and those foam siding. I then got 50 ft of 6" stove aluminum piping and put one end out of the front window (with a rain cap) and the other end all the way to the back of the shop through the air conditioning window in the office. That really helps and I’ve had this setup for about 5 days. Its a world of diff when you enter and leave the shop. I also put a blower motor on my side of the piping to suck in the fresh air.
The goal now is to hook up an ac unit I brought from home in the ac window, and then find some ducting that will funnel down to a 6" fitting where I can attach the stove piping to. I figured having the AC cool or just have the fan on with the shop air would dirty the filters weekly. So this way its pure fresh air. Then I’ll add a 12" fan on the other side of the office where it would blow out air into the shop so that way I get good circulation.
I’ll post pictures when I’m finished with it :D.
Werksberg used to give away stuff called styrene suppressant. I’ve never personally used it but apparently it helps great in reducing the amount of styrene stench.
Ìt does, but the styrene is not gone. And as styrene is bad for your heatlh, you would like to get rid of it.
an automotive paint booth with filters that are made to filter fumes for composite resins, but you’d be looking at over $3000.
A paint booth moves over 7000cubic ft of air per minute. If you look on ebay you can buy an explosion proof paint booth fan/motor for around $400. It will move at least 7000cfm.
1200 cfm is really not much, but better than nothing.
also you would need an exhaust pipe of at least 24 inches in diameter to move enough air to make it healthy… but still do wear an organic cartridge respirator.
instead of starting a new thread id thought id post here…
so i maybe moving into a new shop and im concerned my neighbors may say something about the PER fumes… If i exhaust the fumes out of the shop, that will just push the fumes out of my shop but towards my neighbors… is there anyway i can “trap” the fumes? what do you guys do? or is exhausting smell out of the shop enough to get rid of the smell?
Per? polyester resin? i used to filter thru three 2"x24"x24" actavated charcoal filters. Not cheap but efective. Hope there isnt any woman working nearby, they WILL complain about the smell.
If you pump out polyester fumes long enough they will complain about the lack of smell 
If you’re looking for carbon filters, you can check out ebay. I remember doing some research and seeing ones for sale that come with 8" diameter blower motors that feed into a bag of charcoal or whatever… Of course, from the look of the sale pages, nearly all of them were meant for ‘grow’ operations, if yaknowhadimtalkmabout ;)…but an activated charcoal filter is an activated charcoal filter, and these appear to be pretty large ones in the 100-200 dollar range.
this link shows mostly just the replacement filter cans on the first page, but I remember seeing bundles that sell both the filter and the blower as a combo