banane

Ok Guys here comes a (sad) update: In Germany it is prohibited to work with propane within basements or similar environments. If you start to change a building i.e. build a chimney or ventialtion system the chimney sweeper is allowed (if he is a nice guy and has an awesome day - he might not ) to ask for a so called "bauaufsichtliche Zulassung" (generall technical approval) which does not exist for forges (of any type in Germany). You can get this approval for a couple of hundret Euros. Thus it seems to me that it is in Germany almost impossible to build up a legal forge in a basement. If you work in a garage or similar setting you will not need such an approval nor will you need the chimney sweeper - because the forge is not installed permanently. On top of this you may install a fan to help ventilation without approval as it is not absolutly neccesery from the beginning. Thank you all for the numerus helpfull and polite answers, I have learned a lot. Looks like I need to find a different place - not because it would be impossible but because it would be illegal. Banane

Am I understanding this correct: Frosty and Charles you both recommend: A fan for ventialtion of the shop AND a chimney for the heat source possibly with a second fan to help the airflow. In addtion to this a CO sensor and a flammable gas sensor with an alarm coupled with an exhaust fan. (is this correct?) Do you think that a smoke hood together with a 14 m³/min (494 CF/min) fan would be enough standard ventilation or do you think that I need a second one? @Charles R. Stevens did I understand correctly that you are in favour of a coal/charcoal/coaks rather than high pressurised gas? (Btw thinking about what Glenn said - doesnt charcoal burn a lot faster than coaks, I mean expensive?) For weather I should use gas or coal I did not understand your point @Hans Richter regardless the firesource there is only one exit (I am pretty shure I missunderstood you there) and why should the smoke emission be a problem WHEN you have a fan (together with a smoke hood) pulling the fumes from the forge into the smoke outlet. So did you mean, that you would not recommend this basement? (the flame killer sounds like another good backup) Thank you Frosty for this; I think I will be able to transfer this way of doing this to Germany. @Mikey98118 please don't get me wrong. I am considering a situation where I am - not knowing better - looking down the barrel. And when the ice is that thin I hope to encourage everyone to tell me that I should not walk it. And thinking about such things makes me not lighting up the forge in a basement without advice ( but maybe this is just an oddity of mine) Have you ever heard the advice never to look down the barrel of a gun? You are considering excepting a situation where all the possible things that can go wrong will leave you on very thin ice; why would you do that? Charles says that you know what you are doing with basement blacksmith shops. Seeing the pictures - how would you proceed? Do you even think that this place is worth a shot? Thank you all for the help. It is very much appreciated. Please let me know if using the "@" function in this conext is correcrt use or not. Banane PS: Hans: If I ever unwisely choose to ignore Charles " Safety has to be built in, not only to the shop, but into your habits. " and I start running down stairs with glowing iron I'll make sure to take a video as amusement and a "not to" for now I have the option to have everything in the basement or to keep looking for another place.

Thank you all for the answers. Regulation on propane storage: Musst not be stored in basements as well as in 10m of open fire. One needs a place in fresh air and not within an inhabited building. But you are allowed to keep them in your garage - as which the upper workshop counts. Upper workshop: originally a small garage (concrete), used rarely (less than 3 times per month) to make smaller woodworks and has no gas or flamable liquid stored. Unfortunatly this is all I know about it. Glenn Do you mean to contact the propane company to check wheather there are tanks or similar things around which would prohibit a forge? Are the firedepartement and the propane company the ones in charge in your country? I am in contact with the chimney sweeper who musst (at least in Germany as far as I konw) say that everything is correct and working as inteded. But this guy says that he has not a clue and I should provide him with a building-authority approval of the forge (which I don't have) or more information about the exhaustion fumes. Frosty thank you for the welcome. So a flamable gas detector and a CO detection both with alarms. Thanks for the tip of not metioning the WHERE (would have made this mistake) I will be able to get pics untill the end of the week from the upper workshop. I only have lousy pictures of the room itself right now (see below). Richter thanks for encouriging the coal forge (I would say that I can resionable fast light the forge and happy that you say that this still might be an option). Your propane tank handling sound good to me. Do you also have to ask the chimney sweeper in belgium? If I missed something which I should have answered feel free to point it out - all it can do is helping . Thank you all, Cheers, Liebe Grüße Banane first picture is the entrance, second is one half of the room. More pictures can follow during/end of the week

Hallo folks, I was looking for a place to build a smal workshop in and was offered a wine cellar with concrete cealing, walls and floor. Above this there is a rarely used workshop (stone walls). The overall setting is a small village with the next two houses within 10m (30F). Thus I was hoping to avoid the smell of a coal forge and using a gas forge. I do know that propane is heavier than air as well as during the burning process CO2 and if the flame is bad CO are produced (which are both deadly and tastless/smellless). Thus a suffiecient ventilation and propane/CO/CO2 sniffers would be needed. The propane bottle must not be stored in the basement. Is it enough to not store it in the basement and have it inside while working or would this benefit an accident? I thought about using a ventilation capable of pumping 14 m³/min (494 CF/min), which would be 840m³/h of air together with a hood over the forge and for the air to stream back into the room a 20cm (8inch) diameter tube from outside. Is this enough air exchange? Would you advise against this plan? Would you rather use coal in this setting? Or would you not take offer of a room and look for something more suitable? Thank you all for help, warnings (or even an insult for bad ideas ;-) I might need one) banane

Hey Folks, I figured it might not be wrong to say hallo. So to start things of - a couple of words about myself: I made a first makeshift coalforge 5 years ago and since more tools and things came together. Although I did not have a place to have my stuff set up all the time I managed to forge a week or two per year ( only). At this point of time I am trying as hard as I can to find a place for a smal workshop and thus these are going to be my first uses of the search function (google + iforgeiron) and probably a thread. As for what I like in blacksmithing and so on - it is mainly the process of working with this awesome matrial and fire and learning. In my experience it was always better to make many many babysteps than one big leap. As my first attemps of forging where tongs - and I ended up with junk and the will to make countless rivets before trying again. I hope I do not sound like a moron but anyway. hallo guys, banane