Using a gasforge indoors....

P.K.Hansen

P.K.Hansen

Joined
Aug 8, 1999
Messages
402
Good ventilation is a must of course.
But how much air would you say is the minimum above the forge ?
I just got mine, and the guy who made it says at least 10 feet between the forge and the ceiling. Does that seem right to you ? More or less in your opinion ?
I can get 7 feet if I place it flat on the floor, but who want's it down there :D
If I place it at the stairs I have more like 15 feet from floor to ceiling, but it's not a good place to work. Seems I'll have to take it outside :grumpy:
 
I use my atmospheric in my shop next to an open garage style overhead door with a 5/8 inch sheetrock ceiling at about 4 feet below the ceiling, no problems so far. I haven't played with my blower driven ones inside yet, as I haven't had them built through winter yet, I am rebuilding what is left of my shed into a smithy so I can work at home during the winter. I plan to have a sheetrock lining in the shed with a metal hood and chimney over the blower forges. I will be thermocouple testing to make sure nothing gets too hot.

-Page
 
Wow, I'm safety aware and all, but this boarders on paranoid!

LPG doesn't make carbon monoxide when it burns. What it makes is water vapor, and lots of it. This is both why ventless propane "fireplace" inserts can exhaust right into your livingroom without asphyxiating your family. This is also why such "fireplaces" can be a core cause of mold growth in drywall.


Depending on how efficiently your forge holds its heat, I wouldn't worry too much about ceiling clearance. People burn woodstoves in their livingrooms all the time with 5' of clearance, and while the inside of the forge gets a heckofalotta hotter than the surface of your typical woodstove, the former is purpose built to hold its heat, the latter is purpose built to radiate its.


Keep a good eye out on your first couple of good, long burns, and if there's no discoloration, I'd say you're good to go!
 
With a lack of sufficient oxygen for complete combustion to carbon dioxide and water vapor, burning propane will most definitely make carbon monoxide. Googling "propane combustion" or "propane carbon monoxide" should give plenty of hits that can verify this. I would think that these conditions are essentially what one will create in a fuel rich "reducing atmosphere" in a forge.
 
Actually propane will make monoxide if you are running a reducing atmosphere (carbon monoxide is the key to reducing the oxygen out of the oxides, as monoxide really wants to bind another oxygen) and there is nothing like a forge to suck all of the oxygen out of a room regardless of the mix. How do I know? when the room starts looking yellow it means time to get the hell out ! A partly open garage door and a window do not supply enough ventilation for two burner atmospheric.

-Page
 
Never worked with a gas forge before, but that sounds kinda high to me for the top clearance for the forge. I coal forges flame under full cranking of the blower doesn't even produce a flame that high. If you were to crank the blower hard enough to make a flame that high then you would make the coke in your firepot shoot out like a volcano right into your face.

I'd definetly make sure that you have some serious ventilation. You need to cycle out the air from around the forge (to get out any bad chemicals) and make sure that you have plenty of fresh air coming it (so you stay alive).

If your forge is in a smaller room definetly make sure that you don't work with galvanized steel. That stuff will kill you if you breath in the fumes when it gets hot.
 
Get a carbon monoxide detector, the kind with digital readout preferred.

Even in a big shop, CO can be a problem.
 
there is nothing like a forge to suck all of the oxygen out of a room
Click to expand...

True enough!

Interestingly, I run my gas forge in my garage all the time with the wondows and garage door all shut.

Until now, I was fairly impressed with how well sealed the garage was.
 
I crank all fans wide open, when I first fire the gas forge up. They burn much more effenciently when they get up to temp. You can have problems when they are cold.
I have a five foot clearance over my whisper lowboy. I've run it for years at this hight with no problems.

Fred
 
Dan,
My recollection of your forge is that it is a very low output device which doesn't burn a whole lot of fuel and is very well insulated, or at least that is how you were running it at Ashokan. I like the suggestion that was made of getting a CO detector, and will follow that advice (Thank you Gene Chapman!) I am building fairly high output forges, and my atmospheric is a double burner whisper. I would suggest increasing your ventilation, monoxide poisoning is very insidious, and if your garage is attached to your house monoxide can sneak through walls.

-Page
 
Yeah, I run it pretty much like that at home too. The CO detector is really a good idea. The cheapest form of insurance, I guess!
 
it should be to hard or to expensive (especially compared to the medical bills and death issue) to just rig up a simple ventilation system. just remember it takes 10 (or maybe 20 i cant remember off hand) times to suck the air out of an area as it is to blow it out. as long as you have a good air flow i think you should be ok, just get the CO detector and any light headness get the hell out.

-matt
 
Whatever happened to living life on the edge?:D
But seriously, CO poisoning is definately not good news so ventillation is definately a good idea, the industry i work in, atmospheric testing is a major issue and is taken very seriously.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top