So if one were to brew with a propane burner in one’s basement, what kind of hood would be needed to vent the fumes? I’ve seen regular, 30’, chimney, kitchen hoods on line for $400+. Would this one be enough? Anything cheaper?
I started to say that you could get by with a 12" flexible aluminum duct and a good squirrel cage fan, but I’d hate to see someone hurt. I suspect this is why noone else has replied, its not an intrinsically safe thing to do. At the very least, get a good CO monitor for the room.
I don’t think it’s intrinsically unsafe to do this…flowhoods are used to capture and exhaust all sorts of unsafe gases. It’ll just be important to design it right.
I think the place to start is a commercial kitchen supplier. They could probably tell you the recommended flow rate based on the BTU output of a burner. I think the it’s also important to consider the dimensions of the flow hood–how high above the kettle will it be and how wide/deep will it be–in order to ensure it will capture the majority of the combustion products.
If the supplier can’t answer the question, they could probably refer you to a mechanical engineer/designer who could.
Oh, and another important consideration is to ensure you have enough makeup air to avoid backdrafting your other gas appliances (water heater and furnace) if they’re near where you’ll be installing the flow hood.
This document looks helpful: http://www.sdcounty.ca.gov/deh/food/pdf/publications_ventilationguideline.pdf
If I’m reading this right, it’s recommending the following for stovetop, non-grease application:
Hood should be no more than 4 ft above the cooking surface
Hood should overhang cooking surface by 12-18 inches on all sides. To me this implies a hood that’s roughly 4 ft by 4 ft.
Minimum flow should therefore be 75 ft/min x 4 ft x 4 ft = 1200 cu ft/min
Duct diameter should be at least 11 inches to maintain a duct velocity of 2000 ft/min.
1200 ft/min of tempered makeup air must be provided.
This is my guess based on a smidgeon of knowledge and about 10 minutes reviewing the guidelines.
I’ve been curious about this since I’ve been wondering about brewing in my basement. It looks like quite a bit of mechanical work if you want to comply with the codes and be safe.
These guidelines are for cooking equipment that is almost certainly assumed to be natural gas. Propane doesn’t burn as completely as NG and will need better venting. I have no idea how much better.
The guidelines also address solid fuels as well that probably don’t burn all that well…as well as cooking with grease. I don’t think it’s any harder to capture little unburned propane or carbon monoxide than it is to capture smoke, steam, and grease particles. I think the main point is that you need to provide a sufficient airspeed to capture the contaminants. The guidelines do call for higher flow rates for some cooking equipment.
Since it involves your life, I’d recommend asking an HVAC expert rather than a bunch of homebrewers. And check to see if your homeowners policy covers using propane indoors. I’ve read of cases of indoor propane explosions that voided the insurance policy.
Remember you’re not just venting CO, CO2 and H2O from combustion. You also need to bear in mind that propane is denser than air, so an outdoor leak isn’t an issue since it disperses, but it will pool in a basement in the event of a leak. You need to be able to flush that without creating a source of ignition
In a basement, I’d rather go electric.
DO NOT put the bottle of propane in your basement. Run a line from the outside and keep the bottle outside. Also, remember that you will need somewhere to vent in fresh outside air to make up for that lost through the vent hood.
+1 to bo’s recommendations.
I found out last night that I had a tank with a faulty valve.
Also, in the last year I have found caccoons & earwigs in my tank valve threads…
You can probably guess what those do to regulators, if they aren’t cleaned out.
So many little dangers to be careful of, with gas.
Good advice!
+1
This is standard building code.
Awesome replies. Thanks, it didn’t answer the question of what kind of hood I should get but it redirected me towards the question: is this really a safe, realistic thing to do? It seems like it’s really not. It looks like for now, the garage will do just fine. Thanks everyone.
what’s the matter? you don’t relish brewing in an unheated garage in january when the temp drops into the double digits below zero? the wind of champlain isn’t THAT bad
“Marsillius!!! PUT A HAT ON!!!”
All the suggestions here are great. While reading this thread, I remembered John Blichmann’s presentation at the 2010 NHC entitled “Tips and Tricks to Setting up your own Homebrewery” which covers some of the issues of a basement brewery and is worth a read (or re-read). If interested, you can view the presentation on this website, just choose “Events”, then “Seminar Presentation,” then “2010”. Don’t forget that in addition to post-combustion gases and potential propane leaks, process steam must also be vented. So even electric brewing doesn’t eliminate the need for an adequate exhaust system.
I decided that garage brewing isn’t so bad afterall . . . .