Welding fumes from 2 car garage

[kansasc10]

Im welding in some floor pans in my 72 c10 using a mig setup with c25 in my attached 2 car garage. The living area of my house is on the next floor up and about 50 feet down from the garage. The garage has 8 foot ceilings and is seperated from the house by an exterior door. Im welding on 18ga mild steel with .030 wire at intervals of 10 minutes or less with breaks of 30 min to an hour in between for a couple hours a night. My question is, do you think the fumes from my welding are in high enough concentration to pose any risk to individuals on the next floor and 50 feet away? I know its impossible to say for sure or not but do you think it warrants clearing the house of occupants prior to welding or should I worry about it enough to invest in testing air samples? Or do you think the concentration (if any) would be so low that I shouldn't worry about it. Thanks in advance.

[Dead Parrot]

Not a professional but a hobby weldor. Are you wearing any PPE for your lungs? How are you doing? You are a couple feet away, if you are doing ok, someone several walls and 50' away is going to be fine as well.

As long as you have cleaned the metal of all paint, primer, undercoat, zinc coating, etc., you should be fine. Clean steel to clean steel rarely causes problems. It is the paint and other things burning off that cause the problems.

Keep the garage door open or at least part open with a well positioned fan to clear out the smoke to further mitigate any problem.

I have had more issues with the dust created by prep grinding then actual welding.

Don't use any automotive cleaning chemicals to prep your metals. Those exposed to heat CAN create deadly fumes. Brake cleaner is particularly nasty.

[Kim57]

Personally I don't think it's a problem. I've never had a problem and I have rooms above my garage.
I also never wear any kind of breathing apparatus when I weld anyways.
I'm no professional but have been welding in my garage for twenty years.
Kim

[61_FL_Apache]

Same as Kim, but I do try to avoid smoke from welding galvanized metals.

[kansasc10]

My question stems from wanting to keep my wife and kids safe. While I think they are perfectly fine being so far away, my wife thinks differently so I wanted to see others opinions. I normally open the garage door but with the temps hitting -20 this week and last, that just wasn't an option. I myself am perfectly fine and have no sensitivity to any of it and have been welding and grinding for years while using a respirator when grinding and staying out of the smoke stream when welding, welding on clean metal, staying away from galvanized etc. But now that I have kids, I figured I better look into it a little more. The good news is the weather is on the rebound so I can adequately vent to the atmosphere again but this is all great info for the future. I think im going to install some ducts in my garage hooked to an exhaust fan with a hepa filter and try to vent fumes through there. It'll double as a ventilator for when painting as well and hopefully keep me out of the dog house no matter what project I happen to be tackling

[61_FL_Apache]

what about fans closer to the ceiling and blow towards the doors? Or if your garage has a side door, stick a fan in that door blowing out to keep air flowing thru the garage.

[tinydb84]

Originally Posted by 61_FL_Apache

what about fans closer to the ceiling and blow towards the doors? Or if your garage has a side door, stick a fan in that door blowing out to keep air flowing thru the garage.

The only problem with this is messing with your shielding gas. Might not be as big of an issue with mig and tacking but for tig you'd be surprised how little of a breeze can mess up your weld.

Another room should be totally fine. Its not like you have a garage full of welders burning galvanized all day.

[Overdriven]

Originally Posted by kansasc10

I think im going to install some ducts in my garage hooked to an exhaust fan with a hepa filter and try to vent fumes through there. It'll double as a ventilator for when painting as well and hopefully keep me out of the dog house no matter what project I happen to be tackling

Try searching for “welding exhaust” or similar to get ideas. There are some systems out there that are basically 6 inch flexible duct on moveable arms to place near your weld area. You can replicate this without the arms by suspending the duct from the ceiling with string and a few eye hooks. My dad has a corner in his garage where he spray paints and has a used residential kitchen hood vented outside to keep my mom from complaining of the smell. Unless you are venting to an area where a window to the living area is normally open I wouldn’t worry about filtering the air you exhaust.