Ventilating a Cigar Room

We have converted out basement, an old fallout shelter, into a cigar room. We have 2 separate pipes that run to the outside as vents. They are 2 3/4 inch in diameter. We are trying to figure out an easy, inexpensive and not too ugly way to attach some type of fan or exhaust fan to these to help suck out the smoke.

The room itself is 8 x 10 and the pipe are on adjoining walls about 10 feet away from each other. We tried a small computer fan reversed but it doesn't have enough drawing power to help empty the room.

Any suggestions?

[mosesbotbol]

Biggest bathroom exhaust you can find.

[Ogre]

Originally Posted by mosesbotbol

Biggest bathroom exhaust you can find.

LOL And hook it up how?

[Hitagain]

Look for a fan with a 3" discharge. the only problem is you will be limited the amount of cfm you can push thru. Maybe use a in line bilge blower from a boat? Would have to get a 12v power supply for it.

[BlindedByScience]

Set up one pipe to pull fresh air in from the inside, use the other to ventilate the room. Got to have make up air, can't just exhaust the room. Put a fan on each one.

The fans you are looking for are "HVAC Booster Fans". This will get you started.

Good luck - B.B.S.

[Nathan]

I would use a bathroom fan, either a cabinet model with the grille on the bottom or an inline model if you already have a grille set up. Either of these can be bought from any home improvement store. They will all be sold with a CFM rating atached to them which is a misnomer because it will depend on static pressure drop but it will give you a good comparison. 115v single phase is pretty standard for them so they will run on the power you have in your house and most of them are permanent split capacitor or partially shaded motors so you can get a potentiometer type speed controller to control the flow. Broan-NuTone has numerous lines that you could use.

[Wharf Rat]

You might also want to look at fans that are designed to mount on the wall and exhaust gas appliances such as water heaters. You aren't burning gas, of course, but it's set up to mount on the side wall.

You need to make sure that there is a source of fresh outside makeup air. If you exhaust without makeup air, you might lower the pressure in the basement. Then, if you have gas appliance or a fireplace, they won't draft right. That's potentially dangerous.

[mosesbotbol]

Originally Posted by Wharf Rat

You need to make sure that there is a source of fresh outside makeup air. If you exhaust without makeup air, you might lower the pressure in the basement. Then, if you have gas appliance or a fireplace, they won't draft right. That's potentially dangerous.

It's better to have more air coming in than going out (if there had to be an inbalance). What about a plain old wall fan with an exhaust? I use that in my house and it works great. I have had 7-8 people smoking at once in my kitchen and it exhaust good enough all considered.

[tsolomon]

The size of your pipes is going to be a problem when it comes to moving air. Look into the inline fans like Vortex, Fantech or Active Air. These are not cheap, but they are somewhat quiet and push a lot of air for their size.

[mosesbotbol]

Originally Posted by tsolomon

Look into the inline fans like Vortex, Fantech or Active Air. These are not cheap, but they are somewhat quiet and push a lot of air for their size.

Wow, those are some serious fans!

Personally, I like the smoke to linger a little and then exhaust or exhaust at a rate where the smoke stays some until I am ready to kick it up a notch.

[BlindedByScience]

Guys, no dis, but I have yet to see any "bathroom fan" with enough CFM to get it done....and I've seen several smoking rooms where guys attempted just that. One room where the guy installed THREE bathroom fans. It was loud as hell and didn't move nearly enough air to clear out the room.

mosesbotbol hit the nail on the head - it's all about the makeup air. You can get it done with a window fan that has two fans; set one to pull air in, the other to pull air out...but booster fans will do it better, faster, and with less noise. If you have two vents coming into the room, the hard work is done. Get some HVAC booster fans and set one to pull air in, and the other for exhaust....you should be golden.

[Nathan]

Start by figuring out how many air changes per hour you need, then with the size of the room you can get to how much flow in CFM you need. You can get a bathroom fan, wall prop fan or a duct fan all of them will work the same as long as they can hit the performance. If you buy a 50 CFM bathroom fan meant for an apartment bathroom you aren't going to get any flow (that is what my computer fan does) but if you buy a 1500 CFM bathroom or inline cabinet fan you will get a lot more.

Select the type of fan based on looks and fit then size the fan correctly for the job. A bathroom or cabinet fan is nice because they are square and are easy to fit in the joists, a round duct fan could be nice to mount on the ductwork but then you have to support it, a wallprop fan is nice to mount on the wall. The bathroom fan is also nice because you can get versions with internal backdraft dampers to help with air getting in when you don't want it to. Also centrifugal fans will be able to overcome the extra pressure if it is windy outside trying to blow air back in your ductwork when the fan is on. An axial fan is more likely to stall if the air is blowing back into your ductwork.

[357]

An inmate's brother built an amazing basement cigar room. He posted detailed plans, pics, part numbers, and prices on his site. See here for details:

http://www.ryandeyer.com/cigar-room/

[Wharf Rat]

Good thoughts, Nathan