Turpentine alternative

[GinaC]

Buy her a fan.

Our carriage house is a shared studio/shop space. My wife has her studio for art and I have a shop for welding, woodworking or whatever kind of mischief I feel like getting into. Sometimes I use some pretty stinky stuff in there. I have learned to have the exhaust fan on most all the time, especially when my bride is busy in her space. It makes for a happy relationship.

Yep, this should be minimum safe practice! However, in reality, it's pretty much the ideal.

My workshop will be in the front part of my garage, which is my basement, so I'll be doing the stinky stuff right under the kitchen. I plan to keep the garage door open and just set up a few fans blowing out. I'm lucky that there's one operable window there as well, so if I really want to work on something when it's cold outside, I can just put the fan in the window.

[nhguy]

Buy her a fan.

Our carriage house is a shared studio/shop space. My wife has her studio for art and I have a shop for welding, woodworking or whatever kind of mischief I feel like getting into. Sometimes I use some pretty stinky stuff in there. I have learned to have the exhaust fan on most all the time, especially when my bride is busy in her space. It makes for a happy relationship.

Yep, this should be minimum safe practice! However, in reality, it's pretty much the ideal.

My workshop will be in the front part of my garage, which is my basement, so I'll be doing the stinky stuff right under the kitchen. I plan to keep the garage door open and just set up a few fans blowing out. I'm lucky that there's one operable window there as well, so if I really want to work on something when it's cold outside, I can just put the fan in the window.

That sounds like a good setup for a shop. Sometimes one little window fan doesn't quite cut it. I often wear a respirator while in the shop. The heater is in my wife's space, so with a fan running it makes for a cold place during the winter months. Fingerless gloves and a sweater are standard equipment.

[phil]

during my roofing I put a tarp on the roof. it collected all the rain on the roof alright but I had roof jacks and walking boards, they formed a ditch. of course the tarp had a little hole so it collected ALL The WATER and oh yea, the hole it had was right where the plywood joined and so we had ALL the rain on the roof coming in. I collected at least 10 gallons of water from the pot lights within minutes. ran up and moved the tarps a few times but it was pretty futile. I have a giant blower, like a furnace blower but huge so I set it on the kitchen table and put 150 watt bulbs in the pot lights. I wasn't her favorite for a while. I worked my arse off and got most of it finished now but what a saga..

[Kashka-Kat]

You know this is not a matter of esthetics and just not liking the smell. This the body having a physiological response to, yes, a toxin. Inhalation can cause -headaches, dizziness, nausea, confusion, tightness inchest, rapid pulse, wheezing/asthma. Not everyone processes toxins the same way. I used to be very macho about breathing wood dust, solvent fumes, even methyl chloride. It was fine until one day it wasnt.

Could we go back to original question - why does it have to be turpentine? Any other forms of penetrating oils that can have same benefit? If nothing else I wonder if wrapping in plastic or making some other plastic enclosure would help contain the fumes (similar to what is used when fuming oak).. I tried to use turp once and it was horrendous - couldnt get rid of the smell for weeks and even when it was outside in the yard stunk up the whole property. Its nice to have a separate workshop but not everyone has this luxury. I would suggest to OP to find a friend who might rent an outbuilding somewhere else, if you dont have one.

[1918ColonialRevival]

Everyone has different levels they can tolerate. I barely have a sense of smell and I blame this partially on many years of using harsh chemicals in areas where I probably shouldn't have in retrospect.

Turpentine, or anything with a strong or noxious odor, should be used outdoors if at all possible. Even then, I would try to use it in an area where the wind will carry the smell away versus blow it back toward the house. If you absolutely have to use it inside, do everything you can to ventilate the area. Have all windows in the work area open and have at least two exhaust fans blowing the fumes outside where they can disperse.

On a somewhat related matter, turpentine was getting hard to find earlier this year. Now, it seems like almost everyone has it again, at least in this area.

[Manalto]

I don't have a suggestion for an alternative, mainly because I don't understand fully why turpentine does a good job, particularly in nourishing dried out wood in window frames.

I would, however, like to second what 1918 said. I thought I might have gone a little bit overboard in my acquisition of fans, but I'm finding that having a choice among them offers some versatility in warm weather when air conditioning is either not available or provides inadequate ventilation. Box fans have been a godsend when working in dusty or smelly situations; placed in a window, a box fan directed outward effectively clears a room. Weather permitting, closing the door to that room with windows open and running an oscillating fan while paint (turpentine, or other chemical) dries and cures has been an effective method for me. I overdo it, continuing the ventilation for several days, if possible. I know people who are more sensitive to these toxins and smells than I and that is one reason for following this practice. Another is the insidious nature of toxins; they may still be harmful even when undetectable.

We can only do our best to trust what science is telling us at this moment in time about what is harmful or what is not. I suspect, though, some of these warnings assume people will be careless and use volatile products in enclosed spaces with little or no ventilation.

[phil]

I just bought a dust collector for my woodworking. It should help a lot wit the dust. i also have some huge carbon filters so I was considering mounting one on the dust vac, so it blows through the big filter rather than the cloth bag. outside ventillation is best of course. the motor is not explosion proor so it isnt' recommended for solvent fumes. It might be ok if it is just a bit of smell and not a fire hazard.

If you make a lot of flamable fumes then you also need to think about sparks from motors. and lighting. You can get explosion proof lighting and motors but they are more expensive. usually where they do paint or bodywork there are also very strict rules about this. At home it is easy to overlook. mishaps do happen , like knocking over a can of something flammable or tripping over a work lamp and breaking the bulb.

[Manalto]

Good point, Phil. Although it may seem unlikely, I've heard that fires are most likely to occur when a house is under renovation, so it doesn't hurt to be cautious.

[phil]

I'm not sure if it is true across the board but it may be that the insurance company wants you to pull a permit and buy extra insurance during a reno. With many of us doing continuous "improvements" maybe it is worth considering what constitutes a renovation, as opposed to "regular maintenance" It seems like it is a fine line to me.

I had posted in the antiques section about my old rowboat and Lily responded with some links to how they origionally burned pine to get pine tar which was used as a protective coating. I think terpentine is related to the process, probably a byproduct of other industrial processes. It isn't refined from oil but from wood or othe bio material.
My theory is that it is a naturally created insect or bacteria deterrent , to protect trees from bugs or mold etc. as we move towards greener materials it may be in the process of falling out of use , to be replaced with products from the oil industry.

with modern houses they no longer use things to protect wood, they just use things like hardiboard and plastic more and the stick frame is kept dryer so they can build everything from chipboard, MDF, fingerjointed sticks and other garbage wood.

I found a jar of paint around my house and started using it because it matched my windows and things. it really stinks, not like the modern oil based paints. I believe the paint was old enough to have things like turpentine in it's mix and it worked well and seems to outlast modern paints. It isn't as hard as most modern outdoor paint. I think the underside of my porch roof is still original paint.