Too cold to paint

bill3337

Member
I've been waiting to paint my fenders and a few small parts in my home spray booth, but too cold outside. We don't normally get freezing weather, but its staying around 35-40 degrees for the last month. I have heat in the booth and can keep the booth and all the metal at 70 degrees without air change, but don't have a heated intake air. I guess I'm stuck until the outside air is up to about 50 at a minimum.
 
What I do is heat the booth, metal and paint up to 70 degrees with an electric heater (no sparks or flame). My booth fans draw air from the heated shop but I have to open the windows to get enough air supply.
I get everything set, mixed and parts ready to spray and then turn on the fans. I spray a coat and as soon the room clears I turn of the fans again. The metal doesn't cool as quickly as the surrounding air so it hardly drops in temperature at all. Then during the flash time, I close the shop windows and let the booth air heat back up again.
Works great for parts and I have even done completes like this.
Once the parts are cleared I keep the heat about 70 overnight. Yep, big electric bill but it allows me to get something done.
 
my booth stays at 70+ with the fans running even when freezing outside. just had to throw that in bill . :p
do like stated above . heat it up good, shoot your parts then shut off fans and heat it back up.
once i'm done clearing i shut it down the set my heater at the door and run it up to about 100 then close everything up.
 
I wish mine would keep up that temp. I just have baseboard heat, which can get it up to 75 or so in cold weather, but is pretty slow recovery when it cools down. The fresh air comes into separate heated part of the garage and then through the filters into the booth, so I'm not actually bring cold air directly into the booth, but it cools down pretty quick.
 
get a good quality torpedo heater and use #1 kerosene in it. set it outside of the intake and you will be fine. that is how i heat my booth . or you can use one that burns propane .
 
I would have thought you'd get contamination from the kerosene fumes, but obviously you haven't had that problem. My setup is that I just have a regular double garage, about 24 x 24, that I have built a wall down the middle to create the booth. My intake filters are in that wall at one end (so it is drawing air from the other side of the garage) and the exhaust goes out the opposite end end wall. I have a vented storage attic above the garage. That's where the intake air gets into the garage side. I could maybe place the heater in the "garage" side but it would likely bring in fumes that way. How far from the intake do you have the kerosene heater?
 
during winter i close the door between the back 30x40 and the main shop. i set the heater in the area in front of the booth doors to heat up that area. BUT i have a good heater that has not been messed with and burns red hot so not much in the way of fumes . i have painted when it was in the low teens and kept the booth at 70+ .
 

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I just installed a propane wall furnace in my main garage area. Very similar set up to what you have Bill but my garage is 30 x 40. The furnace heats the air in the main garage so when I open the windows to allow more air in the cold air mixes with the warm air in the garage before entering my booth. In the booth I have a portable 220v electric heater like this: http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200395481_200395481
I turn the electric heater off while spraying and then back on again after booth clears and I can shut the fans off.
 
I have a Garage Guy heater. It has a concentric vent that draws fresh air from outside instead of sucking garage air. Works really well.
 
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