I just insulated my garage. I want to be able to paint in there this winter. What kind of heater can I use? How should I vent it. I am an experienced painter but don't know how to make my garage into a paintable/safe atmosphere. This has been driving me nuts. It will be cold as hell here soon (Buffalo, NY) so I need to finish this. Thanks to anyone who can help me!!!!

 

You need to make your gagrage into a paint booth. You need a spark-proof vent fan, and whatever heat source you use needs to be spark-proof also, or you'll redefine 'baked-on finish'! I would google paint booths and see what comes up.

 

you also might try asking this question in the paint and bodywork section of these forums

 

Thats kind of like saying,, I want to haul something in my truck, what engine do I need? How big is the garage, how tall, what kind of ceiling? Where are the doors (and how many?) and any windows? You can paint safely in small garages provided you have decent understanding of how airflow works. I thought I saved it but must not have, someone here posted a couple of good links to paint booth design, it was in a thread about pressurized booths.

 

Not exactly, you need to seperate it and make a booth of sorts out of part of it with the heat source in the non booth part. Making the whole place a booth doesnt work very well if you have to heat it and gets paint everywhere. Nothing in mine is really spark proof, in fact if you are relying on that theory for saftey its dangerous. The key is to evacuate the fumes and vapors in an effecient manner that doesnt allow them to become rich enough to be an explosion or fire hazzard in the first place. I have my own but have built a couple in small garages too. I seperate in half with a simple roll up curtain and in a bay with a roll up door. I open the door a couple of feet and put 3 box fans sucking out with furnace filters in front of them to keep the overspray out of them. Cardboard the rest to seal it off so there is suction. At the other end up high I let some air into the booth, couple of different methods can be used, but I let some air in, but restrict it enough it sucks the curtain wall in, this makes a downdraft booth and puts a slight vacuum on it to keep spray out of the tool and heat side. The vaccuum creates air flow in the direction you want. You can have a furnace or stove in the other side of the garage making heat and the walk door wide open to let air into the building. You want no vacuum on the building itself and do want some on the booth, you can fiddle with it to tune, its easy enough, some smoke would help but after a bit you can tell by the vacuum on the curtain. This system is fast to build, stores the curtain, just 6 or 8 mil clear plastic up out of the way when its not needed and drawws the warmest air from the ceiling into the booth. You may be able to see how the curtain is made from my pic gallery.

 

Thanks for the help. My garage is small about 16x26 with an attachment on the back that is not insulated but cut off by an insulated door. One of my problems is finding fans etc. Like the box fans you mentioned. When I was paintshop supervisor at Buffalo sandblasting we had three of these big box fans with filters like you mentioned. I used to put them under the garage door like you do. It worked great. But what kind of heat source should I use? My garage is paint proof-- everything is covered for overspray. So I don't care about that much.. I have so many projects going I need them done by spring. I really appreciate you input. THANKS!

 

You can buy box fans at Wal-Mart for under 15$ I run a swath of tape around them to make the face 20x20 and just put a common furnace filter in front of them. I think in order to safely heat you are going to need to divide the garage. The fresh air you bring into the building can pass the heat source. A Modine style slightly larger than normally needed to heat the garage would work I spose, painting really eats the heat. There are several methods. One of these days I am going to put infared thru my booth, both for preheat and makeup heat. Its easy to draw down the building heat faster than we can make it. Picking the days, especially in the winter time helps a lot, sometimes planning and waiting a day untill its warmer out makes all the difference.

 

for a heat source in your garage, you need to find a unit heater/furnace that draws the combution air from the outside. your burners and pilot assembly stays clean and reduces open flames from paint fumes. I would not recomend using a 90% furnace unless you plan on keeping the garage heated above freezing all winter long. the furnaces produce condensate and part of it gets trapped in the furnace for proper operation.

 

I have a garage about the same size as yours and this heater gets it nice and toasty.

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=6970&productId=21340&R=2134 0