Using the house garage to do fiberglass work?

[bellsinaboat]

We recently aquired a 15 foot dual console boat (long story) that ended up having waterlogged foam, rotten stringers and needing a new transom. My sons and I have decided this will be a good father/sons project to take on to get this boat restored better than it was.

I am concerned about filling the house with the smell of the chemicals used to do the fiberglass work if we do this in the garage. Is this a valid concern or can we manage this with fans, ect for a few weeks?

Should we consider trying to rent a rental space or garage to complete this portion of the project?

Thanks for your input.

 

[tpenfield]

If the garage has a window to the outside, then you can use a fan in the window to exhaust fumes to the outside. You can always have the garage door open in warmer weather, but no telling if the fumes will go into the house or not, unless you have a fan pulling the air where you want it to go.

 

[sphelps]

You may be able to control the smell somewhat with fans placed strategically .. But probably not 100% ..
If you use epoxy I believe there is no concern with smell ... Poly is cheaper but stinks ..
You can do your grinding outside

 

[gm280]

That's really hard to say. Because no two homes are built the same. I know a lot of folks do use their garages to do such work. But I also know polyester does have a smell that can seem to go everywhere. I don't believe anybody can really say if you would have any issue without being there or seeing your garage house setup. Fans do work. And I would use them for that effort. I do remember when I first received my 5 gallon buckets of polyester, I put them in one of our back unused rooms. Is wasn't a day before we could smell that stuff everywhere in the house. So out to the shop they went. But with fans running and the material in the garage, you could get away with it. Some folks, not me, store their gas cans in the garage without any issues. :noidea:

 

[mickyryan]

Do not grind inside the glass dust will be everywhere and keep pets away

 

[DeepBlue2010]

If there is a place in the front or back yard, I would build a shed and work under it at least during grinding. There is no way, no mater what you do, the glass powder will remain contained. It will find its way inside the house and it would be a naval battle with the admiral.

During glassing, you can move inside specially if it is really cold outside. The poly fumes, specially on the scale and magnitude of your work can be easily managed using a fan or two

 

[gm280]

I totally agree with both mickyryan and DeepBlue2010 on the grind issue. DON'T grind in your garage. Push it outside and if you can, a pretty good area away from the garage. The dust goes everywhere. And I do mean everywhere. Even on you with proper coverall PPE equipment. You will find fiberglass dust in places you seriously didn't even think it could go. :faceaplm:

 

[Chadomosis]

Agreed. Outside away from anything is your best bet. The fumes to the user, aren't all that bad because you develop a tolerance. But the rest of your family, neighbors and every animal that's even remotely close will complain. The birds will even stop flying over your house...

 

[JASinIL2006]

I can imagine with a connected garage that the fumes would be pretty noticeable in the house. Heck, just the residual smell on my clothes when coming in from the garage after glassing was enough to cause the family to complain. Even the closed containers in the basement had a slight telltale odor. I moved 'em out to the garage, too. Fans may help, but I bet there will be some smell in the house.

 

[kcassells]

I'm back to nah. Unless you do a posi revers air dohickey thing like nurseman did or aminch. They basically wrapped the boat space in an enclosure and set up fans thet created a pos/neg zone and managed the air/stink go out the garage. Check out there links. Kinda like you just made your boat and enclosure a vacumm in a box.
Has been done but prep is da key for this scenario.

 

[bellsinaboat]

Thanks so much for the help. I didn't realize the epoxy resin didn't have an odor, just fumes?

Definitely will grind outside. The boat is stored between a group of shade trees in a family members large back yard/field. So , I'm thinking I can do all of this under a pop up canopy? I'm guessing the canopy will need side doors to prevent the drying glass and poly/epoxy from getting dirt blown onto it.

 

[tpenfield]

The resin (glass) does not dry, it hardens and generally will do that in less than an hour. Epoxy may be a couple of hours.. So, unless it is really windy then you may not need to go to any extreme measures of side panels, etc.

 

[gm280]

I do have to say that I was very irritated with the poly smell even with a 3M 6700 respirator mask on initially when using polyester resin. However, as time when on, I can now do some without much of a smell. So either they changed their mixtures, or my smeller got use to it. And it does seem to dissipate after a while as well. I can walk into my shop (where I was doing the poly work) and I can't smell it anymore. JMHO

 

[mickyryan]

I think we slowly become addicted to the smell and immune so it requires more for us to be sated , ya'll don't lie, you know you smile when you drive by some ones house and smell glass work going on