Ventilation

[Maggie]

A few weeks ago I joked that maybe I was poisoning myself because of the fumes and smell from torching, well I actually was. Every time I worked in the studio I had a metallic taste in my mouth, dry mouth and sometimes tickle in my throat and basically felt rotten.
Today I decided to check out my kitchen hood fan because it obviously wasn't extracting properly and took off the top metal cover and discovered that the flexible ducting had slipped off the outer extraction pipe and all the fumes were blasting back into the studio ago and have been for weeks! Maybe longer. How stupid do I feel?? Thank god I always had a window open near me.

Anyway all torching is on hold until I get new ventilation system built and today I was looking into it on Lampwork etc, and found some great and useful info by mikeaurelius called 'ventilation basics parts 1,2 and 3'

Recommend everybody has a look at it if you're at all concerned about your system, it contains a lot of technical stuff and he also says not to use soft wall flexible piping that I and a lot of other people here have used to extract fumes with , but to use round smooth sided galvanised metal ducting.

Bit of a wake-up call for me anyway, my three children need me more than the glass bead world! I know there was another thread about this in Oct so please everyone check it out.

http://mikeaurelius.wordpress.com/2007/12/25/-part-1/ventilation-basics-part-1/


Maggie x

[Redkite]

oh, that's scary - hope you are feeling better now.

It's good to be reminded about these things, especially since we tend to get carried away and spend several hours at a time generating poisonous fumes!

[MyGildedLily]

Thanks so much for the info. I am just in the process of getting myself a studio. I'm new to the flame. My husband is a handyman and is going to help me with the set up. So I will be sure to check out the info you posted. Also, I live in a place that has very cold winters and open windows aren't always an option. So this will be great for me to read up on.

[Maggie]

Just put link up there to make it easier to find.