Kiln room question

[DMCosta 9]

Hi All, 

I moved 18 months ago and now my at home studio is in my attached garage. I have my small skutt kiln in there. Question: Is a kiln room 100% necessary? I have proper electric and an envirovent installed and vented to the outside.  I don’t work in the studio when I’m firing and I don’t allow anyone to walk through the garage while firing.  My old studio I had a kiln room but it was much larger space. I have a much smaller space now and building a specific room for it would be tough. 

Was curious of everyone’s thoughts, thank you! 

~Dianna 

[Benzine 1,052]

Nope, that is not required at all.  

If you have it vented, you could even work in there, during a firing.  And as long as you give people a heads up, you don't have to worry about people walking through.  

I give my students plenty of warnings, about my classroom kiln.  In some cases, they act like they might spontaneously combust if they look at the kiln funny.  I just tell them, to treat it with respect, and they'll be fine.

[liambesaw 1,489]

Kiln room sounds like a waste of a perfectly good room!

[Denice 586]

I believe you have have the safety part covered.   You don't need  a kiln room,  I worked this way until I got my kiln room built.   My studio is attached to the garage which is attached to the house.   My studio's in the past always had the kilns in a separate room or building.    I tried it without having a separate room but I wanted to be able to work while the kiln is firing.  It is a pretty small room  so I have a fan in the ceiling ducted outside,  a window with a fan and a enviorvent system on the kilns.   Three of the walls have  concrete board on them and the other wall is shelving to keep stilts and cones organized.  The room still gets very hot  when I fire my big Skutt to  C6 so my husbands turns on his big shop fan and pulls some of the heat out.   He is more concerned about the heat built up than I am.     Denice

[DMCosta 9]

To be honest I’ve passed through my studio once or twice when the kiln is peaking in temperature and it smells a bit fumey I don’t think I could work in there once it pushes over 500 degrees. 

[Bill Kielb 557]

This all sounds pretty good. Just a word of caution, the more fresh air the better. The counterflow vents are good but really don’t remove everything instantly so any other ventilation you have will only help. If you  use wax you might  smell it burn off a bit between 500 and 1000 degrees. Often the small aromatic hydrocarbons rise up out of the kiln by convection before the counterflow can remove them.

here is an old canopy video that illustrates the escaping gas. It’s worth a watch

 

 

[DMCosta 9]

19 minutes ago, Bill Kielb said:

This all sounds pretty good. Just a word of caution, the more fresh air the better. The counterflow vents are good but really don’t remove everything instantly so any other ventilation you have will only help. If you  use wax you might  smell it burn off a bit between 500 and 1000 degrees. Often the small aromatic hydrocarbons rise up out of the kiln by convection before the counterflow can remove them.

here is an old canopy video that illustrates the escaping gas. It’s worth a watch

 

 

Thanks so much Bill, I don’t use wax on my pieces but I usually do also put my box fan on high and prop my back door open somewhat to help eliminate any residual fumes. I also have a big ceiling fan I run. 

[Magnolia Mud Research 584]

Further to what Bill K said: "Just a word of caution, the more fresh air the better."

To obtain true ventilation, the room must have a inlet source of "fresh" air and a separate outlet for the "not-fresh" air.  Air can NOT flow simultaneously into a space and out from that space through the same opening area at the same time.  The best system is to have cross ventilation (in at the bottom & out at the top or in on one side & out the other side). 
Also the exhausted air should always be "way down wind" from the air intake source; having the inlet and outlet sources side by side will often contaminate the "fresh air" with the "dirty air."  
A ceiling fan just stirs the air in a room; most of ceiling fans blow the upper layer (often the warmer air) downward.  Moving air, often - but not always, makes the air 'feel cooler'; in our high ceiling rooms we use the ceiling fans only in the winter to move the warm air back to where we are sitting.  

LT