Winter Garage work - ventilation?

[58Apache]

Well the cold weather is back in the midwest. I need to finish up work on my rust bucket, and that includes welding and painting of various sorts. Primer, weld-through zinc primer, undercoating on the bottom, etc.

I know you need good ventilation when welding and painting, but with it being below 30 degrees outside, there's only so much "ventilation" I can take, being the wuss I am.  I can usually handle down to about 35 with good warm clothing, a little radiant heat, heat from the air compressor, and moving around working. But below about 35, things get a little chilly.

I am just curious what others do? Open the door once in a while? Open the small door a little? Postpone working all together until warmer?

Also, I need to remove road grime from wheel wells and some of the bottom of the car. What's the best way to remove grease and grime from the sheet metal? The body is on a stand seperate from the chassis, so going to the car wash is out of the question.

Once I get it clean I am going to apply rust bullet and then spray on 3M undercoating in the rattle can.

Thanks!
                                 Steve

[phat46]

If i have to paint, I make sure that the paint is warm, the metal is warm and the shop is warm. Then i shut off the furnace, including the pilot and start to spray. when the fumes build up I'll open the doors a little at each end of the shop and let some air flow through. This clears out the fumes but doesn't cool the shop too much.
As for welding, well, i might crack a door open a little, but leave the heat on.

[parklane]

Steve:  In some areas you can rent a steam jenny, or have a power wash company come in and do it for you. You can also spray the areas with a grease cutter (varsol etc) and then use your power washer hooked up to the hot water tap.
John

[phat rat]

I've got a furnace blower mounted in the wall to draw fumes to the outside.  It has a cover with flaps on the outside wall.

[58 Yeoman]

Make sure that your door isn't stuck to the floor before you try to open it with the opener.  I pushed the opener button yesterday, and the opener pulled the bracket right off the door.  Now, there's another job to do. :x

[Crosley.In.AZ]

there are air exchangers in use.  They bring in fresh air and remove the stall stuff.  Some even partially normalize the incoming air temp with the room temp

[GPster]

Going years back to energy efficient heating and cooling I can offer this idea. If you get below the frost level of the ground the ground temperature is usually about 50 degrees. If you're able to do this or are planing this structure in advance just dig a trench enough below the frost level and bury some 12" pipe in it. Have one end of the pipe come up into the garage floor and the other end come up through the surface of the ground a ways from the garage ( the example I say had it running quite a ways and coming up among trees). As you expell air from the garage it will be replaced with fresh, outside air that has been tempered in temperature by traveling through that length of pipe that is covered by 50 degree dirt. If you have the air intake like in a pseudo well house and it is in a shady area you can also add that 50 degree air to your garage in the summer. If that seems like to much trouble for the effect the just get an old home style furnace. Set it outside the garage.Let its return pull the outside air,its pilot burn and its combustion air be outside air and just duct the hot air from the plenum  into the garage. That furnace will heat the outside air that you pressure the garage with and the fumes and the stale/polluted inside air will be expelled under the garage door, cracked open windows or door left ajar. GPster