The Smell of Success and Hot Stuff

[Zipdorf]

Hi Everyone

2 questions:

I press mugs in an office-cum-workshop that is 16 feet by 12 feet on the first floor above a shop. I let out the rest of the 1st floor to a health and beauty salon. When I press the mugs I get a lot of fumes that smell like burning (yes, I know I use a heat press) but at exhibitions it never smells like this. The fumes are reaching the salon, even though I keep the door closed. Is this to be expected?

Also, what is the best way to heat the workshop considering I am not there all the time and don't want to go to the expense of installing radiators or leave an electric heater on all night.

Any advice welcome.

[socialgiraffe]

Hi Zipdorf.

Must admit I am a little surprised that the smell is that strong. The office where I press my mugs is considerably smaller and I never get any noticeable smell emanating from the press. It may be that they think it is coming from your machine when in actual fact it is nothing to do with you. However if the smell is that bad and presumably you have a window I would suggest you install a portable air conditioning unit so the air is circulated and more importantly replaced with cleaner air.

With regards to your second question, I am no heating engineer but if you do not want to spend money on a radiator and do not want to leave a heater on all night then I suspect there is nothing you can do. Seeing as the workshop is quite a small area why do you want to heat the room when you are not there?

[easiprint]

We too get a smell in our office when we press mugs. We have had an extraction fan fitted in the wall which helps. With regards to heating, we have a couple of the oil filled radiators with timers on, so we set them to come on about an hour before we get there and then on and off at various intervals throughout the day. When we forget to program them the night before however, they soon warm the place up when we get there anyway.

[RogerC]

I use the BMS mug press in a 16 x 12ft workshop and have no problems with fumes......basically I don't get any. My press operating temp setting is 170 degrees.

Regarding heating have you considered electric panel heaters with built in timers. You can wall mount them in suitable places and set the times as you require. They also have a 'frost' setting on the thermostat so will click on/off and protect anything which might be damaged by frost.

I bought mine from here http://www.hygienesuppliesdirect.com/th ... tAodmQgAuQ

[GoonerGary]

I'll assume that your burning smell is coming from your transfer paper? Is it dark brown when it comes out of the press?

Also the smell could be formaldehyde which is used in some ink formulas...it has a very strong smell.

But I thought that any smells from a beauty salon would overpower anything that you do? Burning from hair driers, ammonia, acetone....

[pisquee]

Checking MSDS sheets for my inks now to see if they have formaldehyde or other nasties in them...

[bigj2552]

only time i really smell anything is when i over cook something - hasnt happened for a while.
Yeh i get the odd little whiff (from the press - not me !), but nothing to bother my nose about