My workshop is a room inside my house. I'm hardcore about using a spray booth and venting the fumes out the window so that my return to the hobby and any associated fumes doesn't convince my wife to boot me to the uncomfortable garage.

When I started back in the hobby a few months back, it was cold, so I could just run the dryer hose on the back of my spray booth out the open, screen-less window without fear of Texas flying bugs taking over the house. Now that the weather is changing, that's not possible anymore.

I wanted to do something to create a way to effectively vent fumes through a screen without it kicking back into the room. While browsing the aisles at Lowes, I found a $5 plastic dryer vent designed exactly for this purpose.... only with an exterior wall in mind. Nevertheless, I bought the vent (which includes a flap that only opens when air pushes out from the inside), a few washers and a few small nuts/bolts.

When I was building the new screen, I cut a hole in the screen, punched four small holes for the bolts, and put the vent into the screen. After that, I took a hose clamp meant for dryer hose, and mounted my dryer hose to the vent and tightened it down. Then I took some zip ties and zip tied the hose to the workbench to help take some of the downward force off the screen itself.

Viola!

The whole project (minus the cost of the screen making material I needed regardless) was about $10!

With spring here and summer approaching, I thought this tip might be a welcomed one

Nice! Very clean install. But how are you keeping the fumes from just venting back into the house through the screen?

Good question!

So there's a couple of thoughts to this topic:

* My windows open from the left to right, not up/down. I find that even on a light breeze day, there's enough "drafting" effect that creates a kind of vacuum that sucks the fumes out into the world

* On no wind days, you can simply put a fan by the window to create that drafting effect

* You can, if you so desire, attach another length of dryer hose on the outside part of the vent if you really, really need to get it away from the house.

* If you have up/down opening windows, you can simply close the window down to the vent level and put a small cut of plywood in the window and keep most of it from washing back in (although at that point, you'd probably want to just mount the vent on the plywood rather than the screen)

But personally I'm not terribly concerned. It doesn't seem to be a problem so far.

I'll have to convince my dad to let me try this. The main problem is that my work area is in a shared office with his stuff. I am looking into setting it up, on my back porch. But, this means that temperature and humidity will have a huge impact.

I've done something similar, only my vent is mounted to a piece of plywood that replaces the window screen. So I can paint even if it is raining.

What about summer time? You'll probably have the air conditioner on so it'd be pretty stupid to have a window letting all the cold air out. Still not a bad idea I guess.

Yeah, that's a potential problem, for sure. I'm working on some ideas to help

The nice thing about my room is that it's pretty small so it's easy to keep cool and not effect the rest of the house with the door closed and window opened.

I'm starting to think about things I can throw on the outside of the vent to be able to 90 degree downturn the venting so I can close the window down most of the way.

Either way, it's still cooler than the garage

Jake,

Like Mike, I've used a piece of plywood to which I've attached the vent.



It sits in the window frame and has some insulation around the top and sides to provide a better seal. There's enough room between the window and the screen so the flapper function of the vent is not affected. This ostensibly prevents any fumes from backdrafting into the room but it's proved mostly academic since I use acrylics almost exclusively. The good thing is I can still spray in the dead of winter with the booth fan on to suck up overspray, and the room doesn't get cold (or snowy!). It also helps to have it on when I'm working with white spirit at my table.

I suppose this is a bit more of an issue if the screens are on the inside like yours. But hey, if you use (or switch!) to acrylics, problem solved!