Thread: Garage Painting for Dummies

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Is there a preference for setting up your intake and exhaust ? Should they both be low to the ground or the intake higher and the exhaust low to the floor. I was thinking about my power roof ventilator that I have. Couldn't I duct that into the shop at floor level and put a filter box on it and use it as my exhaust. Then do a filter set up from under the garage door for intake as rspears post suggested. Intake on one end of booth and exhaust on the other end.

Originally Posted by buzz4041

Is there a preference for setting up your intake and exhaust ? Should they both be low to the ground or the intake higher and the exhaust low to the floor. I was thinking about my power roof ventilator that I have. Couldn't I duct that into the shop at floor level and put a filter box on it and use it as my exhaust. Then do a filter set up from under the garage door for intake as rspears post suggested. Intake on one end of booth and exhaust on the other end.

Take a lesson from the pros. If you did a search for paint booths you'd notice that whatever style they almost always exhaust low. Old tech (and cheaper) is cross flow where it comes in the back leaves the front. The ultimate is what's called a down draft where the ceiling is the filtered intake air, and the floor is set over a plenum for filtered exhaust. The less "sophisticated" ones will have the intake either along the top or on one end wall. For home the idea is to think about the path of air flow and minimize the chances of picking up "junk" to toss into your fresh paint, along with getting rid of the fumes. If the intake is down at floor level you increase your chances of blowing crap into the paint. Keep the physics in mind too. The amount of intake air potential should be at least as big as the exhaust.

Originally Posted by buzz4041

Is there a preference for setting up your intake and exhaust ? Should they both be low to the ground or the intake higher and the exhaust low to the floor. I was thinking about my power roof ventilator that I have. Couldn't I duct that into the shop at floor level and put a filter box on it and use it as my exhaust. Then do a filter set up from under the garage door for intake as rspears post suggested. Intake on one end of booth and exhaust on the other end.

Buzz, you can absolutely duct your PRV down to near floor level, but I would not put filters on the exhaust unless you have a strong need to to protect nearby property. Filter the inlet, and let the exhaust free flow to keep the volume flow up. My paint guy is also my advisor on my paint area setup (hesitate to call it a "booth") and he suggests keeping the exhaust low, thinking that most of the dust to be picked up is on the floor. I like the idea of having the intake filters low, too. I have not yet ducted my intake down - I'm going to spray primer tomorrow and see how it works with the bank of eight furnace filters and variable speed control on the gable vent (I have about 7.5 times the surface area on intake compared to my exhaust fan area, to minimize the trash pickup potential).

Well I visited the local paint store on a fact finding mission. Very interesting, I can still buy solvent based 2 part epoxy primer, only in gallon size, and they still have solvent based paint for base coat, and clear coat. However, they can't get mail order to any town in the Bay Area Air Quality District. However a town 20 miles up the road can. He said they are trying to discourage home painters by making it too expensive.
Also have a friend with some Summit paint I may procure, so so far it sounds like water based base coat may not be the only answer, though I think I'll visit a second shop to confirm this is accurate.
Also had a good chat about Candies with him and see the error of my ways for thinking I could do this first time out. He explained how the base coat color affects the finished color, as does the number number of coats and the thickness of the coats. Also it seems that it would be much easier using a single stage paint like "Summits Paint, Single Stage, UV Stable, Acrylic Urethane"
Which was part of that do it yourself feature article in Hot rod magazine last year. Finally the price for their paint is definately right at this point. They also sell a clear coat for this paint which I'm sure will create even more questions from me when the time comes to do this.
Again thank you all for your imput and please add any tips or info towards home painting on this thread as I meant it as a starting thread for all project builders considering giving painting a try. Also with respect to the Professional painters on here, I realize you guys have a ton of knowledge in this area, and can see why you may or may not want to encourage someone to try this, considering all the places a person could screw up a paint job along the way, not to mention all the different paints and processes for each paint that seem to exist out there(it is truely overwelming).
Any tips would and are appreciated. Thanks, Steve.

I think by the first of the year 2011 , all of California has to comply to waterborne products , they can use up what solvent they have , but if they get caught spraying it , Heavy fines will incur .

Kandies are not for the average painters , they require excellent gun control & knowledge of overlaps to keep from getting tiger stripes and blotchiness & other horrific things , and the cost of having to re-do because a lack of this knowledge will kill the pocketbook !!!!

For first time sprayers its better if you stick with solid colors , either in Single Stage or Base coat clear coat . Some finer metallics in darker hues are a bit easier to spray instead of a light color high metallic .

Yes some harbor freight guns are made for beginners , but BETTER EQUIPMENT make it much easier to get a better quality job .

Get a good quality respirator that fits before attempting to spray as the chemicals you ingest can cause great bodily harm !!!!!!!!!!!

One more thing that should always be mentioned in garage painting threads is to be mindful of fire. Seems like there are often water heaters or furnaces or other devices that have pilot lights that are staged in garages. Open flame source and solvent in the air are a bad combination.