Venting Cigarette Smoke
Okay HVAC Pros...I need help. My buddy and I have been finishing his 1600 square basement. After compartmentalizing the basement into several rooms, we are left with a 700 square foot area that will be used for parties. It includes a pool table, dart board, and a 20' wet bar (yep, you read that right). The problem is that there are a lot of smokers in the party crew. We want to exhaust the smoke I have 2 ideas: 1) I thought about putting a blower fan in the furnace room. In my opinion, I can hide the noise and use multiple intakes 2) An electrician friend recommended multiple bathroom type exhaust fans. I don't know what the best way would be! First, noise is an issue. The ceiling is only 8' high, and I would rather hear music than a fan. Second, I don't want to suck off people's hats or lose all of the heat in the finished area. Help...I need advice! What would be an acceptable sound level CFM for this situation? Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated! Thanks! wirenutt, I can give you a very rough guess on a room the size you're talking about with many smokers, you would need anywhere from 1500 to 3000 cfm of air change to keep the room tolerable for non-smokers. To put that amount of air in perspective, a small bathroom exhaust fan is in the range of 200 cfm. As important as the fan is, what you will also need is a way for exhausted air to be replaced, unimpeded. A rough guide is 1 sq. ft/300 cfm of exhaust. So for 2000 cfm you would need a free opening of roughly 2' x 3'. A way of getting around the large opening which is done in commercial establisments is to have two fans. One pushing air in and one drawing air out. Also, if you are in a cold climate you will need to heat the incoming air. I do HVAC work in a small town and to be honest, untill recently, find it very frustrating to deal with commercial clients who call me in to correct a smokey room and then choke on the price. Because cigarette smoke is such a strong pollutant, folks can't seem to understand it takes a very high air-change rate to make the air not be a health hazard. One thing that has changed here is that our Provincial Government, as of a month ago, has banned smoking in all enclosed public spaces, including bars, restaurants, workplaces, etc. It's kinda interesting to visit a bar now. You don't need to put your clothes straight in the washing machine when you get home. I think to pay for what your buddy wants y'all might want to charge the smokers admission to pay for his ventilation, or maybe send them outside. With GregH here . If your going to smoke you are going to pay. Down here you cant smoke anywhere in any of the buildings bars rest.Malls. As for getting the smoke out we did use a power saver damper on the units at 15% so you pay for a lot of fuel.Thats way back. Then we do have the electronic filters you can use in the room.Portable or wall mounted. I see it will do a 2400 cubic ft room 5 times per hour. Then lets go this way in the 70s I was a 3 pack a day.Ended up in the hospital.Now Im on Warfarin Sod for my blood,and I dont smoke. My .02 cents ED Ya, electrostatic air cleaners will remove quite a bit of the visible particles but does not do anything with the gases. I got into trouble when a customer, against my advice, chose to install electrostatic air cleaners in a meeting room, over a ventilation system for 5x the price. It took awhile to get paid because the management meeting where my bill was to be approved had been held in the room where I installed the electrostatics. The delay was because when everyones eyes were burning in a clear room, they thought I messed up. It was a case of a maintenance supervisor trying to pinch pennies, but not fessing up to the hotel owner. I don't think he got a bonus that year! What you need is a air cleaner like they use in bingo halls they are not cheap and a bit noisy but that's the price of smoking. On the cheap heres an old fashion ideal wanna smoke go outside. If tar gets into your air duct it will act like fly paper and all sorts of dust will stick in there and cost you more money to have ducts cleaned properly.
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