Paint Booth Fire Supression

I'm up for another stupid question so here goes; does anybody have a commercial paint booth that they are using ONLY for a hobby booth (two cars or less annually)? If so, what kind of fire suppression did your local authorities require? Thanks.

Just call your local City inspector to know for sure.

In some areas you can't do this at all on residential property. Some will let you do anything you want without a booth, but they limit the number of cars you can do etc.

HaHa! Call you city inspector & you will "wake the sleeping giant." Hell, you won't be able to spray WD-40 anymore, & if you have any flammable sprays, you'll probably have to buy a fireproof cabinet to store them all in. Then he may want to look inside your house, & maybe even have your last few years tax returns audited.

If your neighbors rat you out the same thing will happen.

if you are only spraying 2 cars a year. why the need for a paint booth.
just hang some plastic from the ceiling, wet down the floor then set up some fans with furnace filters on them for exhaust.


google home made spray booth.
1st 3 links from search
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqsb7bCSRHQ

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/570901690242201285/

https://www.rodauthority.com/tech-stories/paint-body/paint-booth-home/

i have sprayed hundreds of cars in my garage without any spray booth. just LIGHTLY wet down the floor and paint away.

Just to clarify things, this would be in a steel building in a commercially zoned area. I'm also on the local Planning and Zoning Commission so trying to evade something is touching the third rail. As to why go to these lengths, I'm just tired after all these years of spaying a color and having my home garage turn the same color.

Just do like my old boss did in the body shop I worked at...glue sprinkler nozzles to the ceiling of the booth. Anybody walks in, they see the nozzles and it's all good. And for the record, in 37 years in the industry, I have never seen a fire in a paint booth.

Last car I painted, I erected an 20x20 alum tent frame indoors, covered it with clear plastic, taped the seams, took a large fan and attached multiple typical quality AC filters on the exhaust side , cut a hole in one side of the clear plastic tent, and cut an opening on opposite to exhaust unfiltered paint fumes, could have installed a filter there, but it would have to be lmuch arger then intake, or tent would inflate like a balloon. Worked well for me.

Any Fire Marshal that passes that needs to be fired.

And in the event of a fire the insurance company would laugh (while they are threatening the owner with insurance fraud) and walk away.

The glued-n nozzles is hysterical; but not a chance I'd take: when inspectors came to my shop, they looked at all kinds of stuff to find some revenue & justify their jobs.

Really, the only complaint I ever heard from anybody was about the aroma - there was an apartment bldg maybe 100' away - and they may have been making that up.

I don't think anyone would know you were painting as long as you don't make a racket, have a strong odor or overspray output.
But some areas would probably come down hard on DIY painting.

That reminds me of a trick I have seen in my industry.
Last few years there have been a number outdoor large tent calamities. They are often held in place by multiple long steel stakes. As more accidents occur because of stake pull out under severe weather, the mandated solution is often just more stakes. The problem is in hard/unknown ground, driving and removing the stakes can be very difficult.

The trick I spotted one vendor resorting to to pass inspection, the stakes instead of being 3' long, were only 6", and once driven, nobody was the wiser.

Inspectors are not always real inquisitive, but once tricked, are nearly impossible.

That glued on sprinkler head is FUNNY!

they are still glued in place to this day and the shop is still in business. The fire dept looks at it every year but never climbs up on the booth to look further.

Well, the owner might be paying for insurance that will provide zero payoff in the event of a fire in that area. His money.

The ramifications if things go awry is not the funny part. It is the creative cheapness of the business owner I get a kick out of. And being kind of a rebel, I can't help but smile when someone beats "the man".

i agree.
in my area not only do they need to see sprinkler heads, they have to be covered up in the booth to prevent over spray build up. they also want to look at the sprinkler maintenance records. at least once a year someone comes in to check standing water pressure and flow pressure, then sign a card hanging from the pipe. i am sure there is paperwork in the office they have to fill out also.

And then the person with the glued on nozzles would scream about having been screwed by their insurance company.

A friend of mine that owns a shop had a fire in one of his booths about 7 years ago. They managed to get the car out of the booth, but the booth was destroyed, and the smoke/water damage in that part of the shop created huge problems for him for a while.

I am really curious. Do you recall what part of the booth caught on fire? My building official is claiming that the discharge filters, the discharge plenum, the fan, and the discharge ductwork, in addition to the booth itself, are all potential fire sources due to paint deposition.

I never asked him what part caught fire. I was there a few hours before it happened, and then again the next day. The booth was a total loss.

My booth suppression system had 2 nozzles in the fan plenum and 2 nozzles upstream from that in the stack, plus 6 in the booth spray area.

When I first went into business, the local FD gave me the requirements for a system, and once it was installed, I never saw them again.
I did see the supplier twice a year for inspection/maintenance, though. Once, I questioned him about the need for twice-yearly visits. He said "Before you ask me that, call your insurance company and ask if you're covered in the event of a fire and skipped inspections." The Insurance company said "Sorry. If you skip an inspection and have a fire in the booth, you're on your own." I kept paying for the twice a year inspections...

Many years ago a kid my brother knew from school had his dad blow himself right out of his garage by smoking a cigarette right after painting. Explosion caught part of the garage on fire and sent him to the hospital.