My nephew owns a body shop, and they are upgrading to a modern downdraft booth. He offered me the old booth for free if I do the labor to remove it. Itis a cross flow and it is probably 40 years old. It has built in fluorescent lights with protective covers, a makeup air unit, a bunch of ductwork, a door on both ends, and they haven't decided whether the dry chemical fire extinguisher system will go with it or not.
I have a 50x80 shop that I could put it in here with a bunch of remodeling and moving stuff around. It would be a lot of work. But it sure would be nice to have a booth for painting stuff.

What do you think would it be worth All of the work to disassemble it, move it, rearrange my whole shop, and reassemble it?

In a word, no. Less time/effort to create a makeshift booth if you need to paint something. A lot less.

If I had the room I'd take a free paint booth even if I had to take it apart. I don't have enough room, however...

When I bought my shop they took the paint booth down and moved it to their new shop that had a newer booth in it.They never ended up using it and by leaving it on skids outside it got ruined and they threw it away! If I would have known that I would have offered to buy it and it would still be used...

Having taken down/disassembled a paint booth at a bodyshop, be prepared for one nasty dirty job, esp if it's 40 yrs old...

I would guess that would depend on how much you think your time is worth, and if you have an actual need for one.

Taking down a paint booth that has been standing for 40 years will be a project, then putting it up and doing the modifications it will need to function at your place will also involve time and expenses. My buddy just (with in the last year) bought a used, but more modern paint booth then he had. They changed the fire laws in out town and his old booth was no longer up to fire code. Might be something you want to look into? I also believe he paid $6,000 for that used paint booth, it was already taken down, but he had to travel to get it, then he had to remove his old booth and install the new one. I remember he had to make a lot of adjustments for the new booth to fit in the same location as his old booth sat. He runs a body shop, so it was money well invested. You have to determine if the effort you exert to remove the booth, transport it, install it at you place, and how often you will actually use it, is worth the effort.

For me, it would be a waste of time. I don't want, need, nor do I have room for a paint booth. Gene

He's your nephew! Save your effort and pay him to paint your schtuff!!! Or if you really want to paint your own stuff, rent/borrow his nice, new, state of the art paint booth on occasion.

How many offers like that ever come up? If you paint on a regular basis and you're up to the task of moving it, why not?
I would have to pass on the deal because I'm certain that it would become a storage room in short time.

^^^This. How much do you paint that would justify the booth and what sort of regulations will you run into using one and/or how tolerant are your neighbors compared to having your nephew do work or renting the booth from him.

Where I work we tore down and moved a automated powder coating line. Asa commercial effort we had all sorts of license requirements we had to meet, but the actual work of breaking it down and moving it and reassembling it took 5 guys 3 weeks. Granted, this was project was much larger than just a booth, but just the oven part , which is all panels and exhaust similar to a paint booth, took the team several days on both dis-assembly and reassembly. Breaking loose all the sealed seams and cured powder from 15 years of use without damaging things for re-use took some effort.

I'd pass. It's probably a PITA to take down and I wouldn't want to waste the space with it or have to deal with any insurance or potential EPA problems having it.

If you can use it and have the space/time to do it, [b][/b]YES! I would imagine you are going to need help and equipment used to dismantle and put it back up though.

30 years ago when my nephew was young and hungry, he would do my old car stuff. Now he has a thriving business with a bunch of employees and a bunch of accounts with insurance companies and government agencies. Now he's putting 300 grand into an expansion and the new downdraft paint booth. So he's all set up to turn and burn this late model stuff. He won't do collector car stuff for me or anybody.

My shop is in a remote area where I don't have to worry about codes, ordinances, or neighbors. But I would need to do a lot of rearranging and probably would need to move some of my collection to another space if I go ahead with this paint booth. I've only ever painted one car myself, and done the body work on a couple. Lack of a dedicated space to do it, lack of skill and experience, and lack of time have made it much more expeditious to just hire someone to do it. But as I get closer to retirement, I think that I will soon have time for that sort of thing. If my body's not completely shot by then.

You have to consider the condition of the booth; some guys don't keep them clean, which would be a PITA to even dismantle.
Especially the ducting behind the filters.
You need to have adequate electrical, gas, and deal with venting.
Some things like control panels, switches & stuff may have been discontinued and require adapting and/or updates.
Handy to have if you're doing much painting.
You need to get a look at the insides, exhaust side, and repair-parts situation.
Then there's placement inside the shop, for best hookups & venting.

If you have the room take it. It can also double as a clean room to park a nice car with cover on it.
It will be a dirty job with dust and paint crap in all the cracks or basicly any place it could get packed into.
I pulled my friends down when he moved shops.
And in the end was tossed out as it sat outside to long after moving.

If you do get it....it may be about as easy to add on to one end of your shop, and put the booth in there. Maybe, you could go in and clean it real good before tear down. That might relieve some of the inevitable nastiness you will incur taking it apart. Just label every panel, and only separate it to pieces that you can handle and haul. I don't have a factory made paint booth, but I was fortunate enough when I built my garage to be able to build a 16 x 24 room off the back that I am able to use for paint work. Good luck with it.

as others posted what is your time worth.
if i had to do this i would pass on the booth. if you really want a booth, with low or no regulations i would just buy or build a mobile prep station and make some curtain wall and make a booth that way. when you don't need it just slide the curtains against the wall and tuck the mobile prep station in the corner.
to me my time is worth way more than burning several days if not weeks. along with abuse to my body tackling a job like moving a spray booth. i have done this in the past when i was young and dumb. it's a major pain. the biggest problem is most older booths will have square nuts and straight edge screw driver slot carriage head bolts on the other end holding everything together. they will probably be covered with paint also complicating things also.

before spending time dismantling and rebuilding ask yourself why do you need a booth?

i have painted hundreds of cars with no booth at all most with excellent results other than getting some light die back from poor airflow. if you use a proper materials designed for air dry situations die back can be held to a minimum. if you do decent prep to the painting area problems can be minimized. painting in a cross flow non baking booth really won't improve the die back problem much. it still will be a air dry situation. paint will flash off a little faster but everything else will be about the same.

good luck

If I had the space I would get it as long it is in good condition and not needing a bunch of repairs.
That said I can't resist when it comes to "free".....like pole barns

Oh boy, without bragging, I think am the expert on this very thing. I bought a used paint booth, and old Binks crossflow. So I trundle down to my local building official to get a building permit. This is where the fun began. What I am sure you will find out, the stumbling blocks are automated fire suppression and vendor literature.

Starting with the fire protection, it doesn't matter if your jurisdiction uses the IFC (International Fire Code) or references NFPA 33 which covers spray booths....all of them require automated fire suppression. The approach I took was to claim that all of these requirements are for commercial spray booths, not hobbyist, and as such did not apply. I pulled out the "hobbyist exemption" that the EPA has as support. That exemption is:

"EPA “40 CFR Part 63 National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants: Paint Stripping and Miscellaneous Surface Coating Operations at Area Sources; Final Rule” defines a specific exclusion for paint booths used strictly for hobby purposes. Specifically the language of that exclusion is (3) in the following excerpt from that standard.

“…. (3) Surface coating or paint stripping performed by individuals on their personal vehicles, possessions, or property, either as a hobby or for maintenance of their personal vehicles, possessions, or property. This subpart also does not apply when these operations are performed by individuals for others without compensation. An individual who spray applies surface coating of more than two motor vehicles or pieces of mobile equipment per year is subject to the requirements in this subpart that pertain to motor vehicle and mobile equipment surface coating regardless of whether compensation is received. …”

I came at them with this argument and initially it didn't make any difference, they denied the permit claiming that it still applied and claimed my insurer would not insure it. So I got a letter from my insurance company that said they didn't care and went at it again. This time I was successful. I do not have the permit in hand but I was told that as part of the permit, I will be held strictly to the requirements of the EPA exemption, no cars (or equivalent parts) that I don't personally own, only I can use the booth, and no more that two cars (or equivalent parts) annually. The rest of the IFC requirements as to ventilation stacks, interior booth ventilation requirements, and interior setbacks still apply. I also have to have two ABC fire extinguishers in the booth at all times (they still haven't decided how large they need to be).

If this had not gone my way this is what I was prepared to do:

1) If they would have held me to the IFC, the IFC has an exemption for flash point liquids (basically waterborne paints) and I would have claimed that.
2) If they would have held me to NFPA 33, it has an exemption for no more than a quart of paint daily and I would have claimed that.

Now to the vendor information, if you can't find vendor information for the booth, you already at a big disadvantage. I am sure you will be fielding questions like "How big is it?", "What is the airflow of the fan"?, "What is the velocity in the booth"?, or other questions only the vendor literature covers. I was lucky enough that one of the old Binks district offices still had both the assembly instructions and the booth data sheet in their files.

I am going to assemble mine just for the convenience. Want to spray a K-mamber? Light up the booth and do it. A steering column? A rear end? A set of springs? And on and on. So, in a nutsell:

1) Talk to your building official about the need for vendor information
2) Talk to your building official about the need for automated fire protection. If your nephew won't let the dry chemical suppression system go with the booth, that is a minimum of $8K to install it.
3) Do both of these BEFORE you invest any more time and effort.

That's my experience with this. And frankly, going in I thought the biggest problem was going to be how to unload it off the trailer!!