Fire and Safety Regulations for Paint Spray Booths

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Q: We are in the process of evaluating our painting system. We paint primers on large structural members. We do not do finish quality painting. We anticipate building a new building to do all the painting in. We need overhead cranes to handle the material. My concerns are regulations regarding electrical overhead cranes and air flow for particulate and solvent control. The area we plan to use is 70'x 48'x 25' high.

Typical paint booths are isolated from anything not explosion proof. Bridge cranes cannot be made that way. Is there a distance away that the bridge crane can be and be legal? Typical paint booths try to limit dust and other contaminates. We do not need this. If I have a volume of 70'x48'x25', can I exhaust and bring in makeup air to meet health safety regulations?

A:  Since I have not seen your factory floor space, nor the equipment you intend to paint, I am not in a position to advise you directly. However, the best recommendation I can give you is to purchase NFPA Bulletin 33 which is the most widely used guideline for designing spray booths. This document can be purchased quite inexpensively from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA website. 

You might also want to refer to OSHA regulations for spray booths.

These documents will answer all your questions. They have a significant amount of information on explosion proof electrical equipment and also on the minimum air flow rate that you require to meet health and safety requirements.

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