Paint-Booths.com Blog

Calling All Customers …. We Want Your …. PRODUCT PHOTOS

I have heard the phrase imitation is the sincerest form of flattery many times throughout my life thus far. Today, I spoke with a new customer, who had reached out to us for pricing on a new spray booth for his growing business. He mentioned in our conversation that he had a buddy down the road who bought one from us years ago and was thrilled with it. Based on this word-of-mouth testimony from one buddy to another, this guy did not even bother to look anywhere else … he just picked up the phone and called us. Word-of-mouth is a pretty sincere form of flattery too…. and we want more of it. Read on to see how you can help.

Testimonials are the best form of advertising to us at Standard Tools. What better way to decide on what product to buy than to read how much others love it? Now, I understand that price plays a big role in a person’s decision when it comes to buying equipment… but if your buddy has one and he is thrilled with it… is price alone really the deciding factor? Something to think about anyway.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and testimonials are the best form of promotion, then a product photo of the equipment in use in a shop are the best way for us to show off our products. Who doesn’t love to see some equipment being used? (Most of the time, the photos also have some pretty cool cars to show off as well).

If you have a piece of our equipment in your shop and you want to share a photo with us, along with a brief testimonial, we would love for you to send it our way so we can share on our social media sites!

If your photo is used, we will send you a great big thank you and a little surprise for giving us your time, testimonial and photo. So, if you have a paint booth, automotive lift, frame machine or tire equipment … send it to us.

Here are the details to include in your email to Katm@standardtool.com

Subject Line: Customer Testimonial

Your Name and Business Name
Your City and State
Product You Have?
What do you use it for?
Why Do You Like It?
Would You Recommend it? Why or Why Not?

Please make sure that any junk or trash is removed prior to taking the photo, it helps make a better photo. That’s it!

Air Makeup Units (AMUs) Are HUMMIN’

It’s going to be 85 in Greensboro, NC today, but cooler weather is just around the corner! How do I know that? Well, I just walked through our Sure-Cure air makeup unit (AMU) production shop, and things are hummin’. We have four units on the bench in process and several more in the queue this week. These Sure-Cure AMU’s are in big demand. ETL-certified and tested, they are among the safest units on the market today.

The Sure-Cure will provide gas-heated warm air inside your spray painting booth to speed curing time, even on the coldest days! With a guaranteed 80 degree rise over ambient air temperature, if it is 0 degrees outside it will be 80 degrees inside your booth! No more waiting hours or days for dry time. Plus you can put it into cure mode at the end of the day and go home. The unit will shut off automatically when the paint is cured.

If you have an Air Makeup Unit that is more than 10 years old you may be a candidate for a new high-efficiency Sure-Cure AMU. Many of the old style Air Makeup Unit’s contain heat exchangers that can crack over years of use. This greatly reduces the ability of the unit to heat the air to the desired temperature. It could also result in dangerous fumes being emitted into your booth or painting area!

Our units are popular because Standard Tools is committed to a 2 to 3 week turnaround in producing these units, even in the winter months. Other manufacturers take 8 to 12 weeks to ship an AMU! So get your order in today, and be ready for the cold when it gets here!

PAINT BOOTH AIR FLOW: HOW IT WORKS

During spray jobs in a paint booth, the exhaust system must draw substantial quantities of air out of the shop in order to operate. These volumes must be replenished with equal volumes of air coming into the booth.

AIR MAKE-UP (AMU) is defined as…a mechanical means of replacing air that has been exhausted out of the booth.

It’s simple…. it’s all about paint booth air flow. How much air in being put into the booth and how much is being taken out. Airflow while spraying takes the over-spray away from the paint job and out of the booth.

Air in – Air out. Air in – Air out. Air in – Air out. Air in – Air out. That’s it. With the Sure-Cure Air Makeup Unit, you control the amount of air pushed into your booth. Why would you need to push air into your booth?

NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE BOOTH PRESSURE
When the exhaust fan of the booth is turned on, it creates a “negative” air pressure in the booth cabin (taking out more air than is being put in). When there is a negative air pressure, the booth will try to suck in as much air as possible, including dirt and debris from outside the booth. THINK VACUUM CLEANERS.

To counter this “negative” pressure, an Air Makeup Unit (AMU) unit is used to supply air to replace the air being exhausted. If the AMU is designed to force more air into the booth than is exhausted…the booth is said to have “positive” air pressure. In this case, the booth has more air than outside the booth and when a door is opened, dirt and debris is pushed away from the booth. THINK STANDING IN FRONT OF A FAN. Continue reading PAINT BOOTH AIR FLOW: HOW IT WORKS

Spray Booth Code Requirements

CODES,CODES, CODES. (Spray Booth Code Requirements). It’s like when you’re in school and it’s always rules, rules, rules. They can be challenging, but we all know that they exist to promote the safe design, production and use of spray booths. They are what keep the folks working in the booth safe.

The codes are founded on common sense and from incidents from the field, like fires and explosions.

Governmental agencies or third-party groups, like the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) or Underwriter’s Laboratories (UL), create, administer and enforce the codes.

As a manufacturer of paint spray booths, the codes are very important to us, and everything we do to create the safest work environment for our customer that is possible.

THE THREE “C’S” AND HOW WE USE THEM:

Compliant – Compliant means that Standard Tools uses the code as the basis in guiding our design, production and documentation. We meet or exceed the requirements based on our interpretation of the code.

Certified – A third-party testing lab like Intertek/ETL tests our booths and compares our production to the code and judges it to meet or exceed the code requirements. When we pass the testing, we get certification. We label our product, trace the product after it’s sold and go through a routine audit by the NRTL to ensure that Standard Tools continues to comply with the code.

Complete – This term means that all of the requirements in the code have been met by Standard Tools. The NFPA codes for spray booths go beyond the design, production and documentation that Standard Tools provides. There are requirements within the codes about the location of the spray booth, an adequate air supply and the use of licensed electricians.

With a car, there is a lot of responsibility that falls on the driver. You could have a really safe car, that was manufactured correctly, but if you fail to wear your seat belt, or you drive carelessly, it won’t matter how safe that car was made. It’s the same with a spray booth. A certified spray booth can be installed in an uncertified manner and that negates the entire certification. There are responsibilities of the spray booth owner. The owner is required to know and follow the instructions of safe installation and use that is provided with their spray booth from Standard Tools and Equipment.

CODES CORRELATED TO SPRAY BOOTHS
Standard Tools and Equipment is informed on the codes that apply to spray booth manufacturing and use. We understand how intensive and baffling the “code” can be … hey, sometimes we think that it may as well have been written in actual ‘code’ language

because it would seem just as foreign. Here’s a brief snippet of the codes and how they relate to spray booths.

NFPA-33 Spray Application of Flammable or Combustible Materials. This top-level code drives all other codes that are specific about spray booths and mixing rooms.

OSHA 29CFR19 10 Section 94 Ventilation and Section 107 Spray Application of Flammable or Combustible Materials

This is Federal code from OSHA with more detail about actual spray booth performance and how it relates to worker safety.

IFC International Fire Code, Chapter 15
This is an International code with less detail than NFPA-33. This often applies to spray booths in foreign-trade zones or in businesses owned by International organizations.

EPA’s NESHAP Rule XXXXXX and Rule HHHHHH
This is Federal code that defines maximum air quality emissions for auto body shops and industrial plants relative to spray operations.

State and local codes typically mimic federal codes but may have added requirements for local considerations like weather or seismic issues.

ANSI Z83.4 and CSA STD 3.7
American and Canadian codes relating to direct-fired heated air makeup systems.

UL-508A and CSA STD 22.2 No.1 4
American and Canadian codes relating to electrical control panels.

Canada has no active top-level code for spray booths. They recognize NPFA-33 and/or IFC Chapter 15. They do have codes that are specific to the electrical requirements and heated air makeup units.

Codes are not laws. Codes are enforceable guidelines to be interpreted by authorities such as local permitting agencies, insurance agencies and federal agencies, such as the EPA. The law is that a spray booth cannot be operated without a final permit to occupy. The ruling authority provides that occupancy permit based on their judgment of the codes and the spray operation. Every effort should be made to comply with the codes, but special situations may be permitted if the ruling authority deems the situation as acceptable.

DO YOU NEED THE ETL LISTING FOR YOUR SPRAY BOOTH?

Standard Tools and Equipment Co designs and manufacturers spray booths and mixing rooms to comply with NFPA-33, the top-level safety code in the USA for spray application of flammable or combustible materials. We are in compliance with these codes, which means that as the supplier, we feel that we meet the code. Being compliant is not always enough, as some authorities require certification by a third-party to confirm compliance. That’s where Intertek/ETL comes in. As a nationally recognized third-party certification organization, they have tested and certified our most popular spray booth and mixing room models.

We offer an upgrade package on our most popular spray booths and mixing rooms. This package includes our ETL-listed electrical control panel, an air valve solenoid to interlock the fan motor and spray equipment and the ETL label for the booth.

So, do you need the ETL listing?

Maybe, if the spray booth is to be located in a large city
Probably, if the spray booth is to be located in NY, MA, CT, RI, MN, CA, OR or WA
Probably, if the spray booth is part of a government facility like a school or a military base
Definitely, if the spray booth is located in New York City or any of its boroughs
Definitely, if your local authority says that it is required – You should contact your local fire and building authority as early as possible in the process of buying a new spray booth

How can you acquire the ETL listing?

Buy it with the spray booth. Standard Tools is allowed by Intertek/ETL to apply the certification mark to the booth only prior to the spray booth shipping from our dock.
If the booth is already installed, you can contact our engineering team and we will provide contact information for Intertek. Intertek will have to visit your shop to inspect the spray booth and apply the certification mark. On-site certification is usually three to ten times more expensive than buying the ETL mark with the spray booth. Other on-site certifiers are UL and MET.

A little paint booth business mixed with pleasure in Williams, Arizona

Actually it was “business” by accident, or by fate, however you wish to look at it. Not really business, as I wasn’t selling anything.

I have been with Standard Tools and Equipment Company for over 22 years now. It is a blurred line between business and passion… as my business is my passion. Working and traveling with the company over the years has been fun and I have had the privilege to see places I probably never would have on my own. I had never really spent any time out west, other than some trade shows in Vegas. So, when my son was chosen as a summer intern at a camp in Williams, Arizona, it gave me the perfect excuse to “Go West” with my wife for vacation this year.

The city of Williams, Arizona is known as “The Gateway to the Grand Canyon”. It is a small town on the Historic Route 66, only 2-1/2 hour drive from Phoenix. Williams was the last town on Historic Route 66 to be bypassed by Interstate 40. The community, bypassed on Oct. 13, 1984, continues to thrive on tourism. The Historic Downtown District covers six square blocks and boasts a rich heritage that features the Old West and Route 66 coupled with tourism trends today and the town’s heyday years of the ’50s and ’60s.

On our first day in Williams, we decided to go for a walk through town. We were walking down Main Street (Route 66) and we passed Custom Designs Autobody. The big garage door was wide open… I couldn’t help myself. I peeked my head inside to see the equipment they were using (as we say in NC, you can take the boy out of Standard Tools, but you can’t take Standard Tools out of the boy). The body man in the shop was working in a paint booth and we chatted a few minutes. I would know one anywhere, a CF-1000 Cross Flow Paint Booth from Standard Tools bought in 2002. 12-years-old and they still use their booth every day!

CF 1000 paint booth in Williams, Arizona — CF 1000 Paint Booth in Williams, Arizona from 2002!

As an online retailer of paint booths and other related products, I often don’t get to see the equipment I sell, all set up and being used. We love it when customers send us pictures of their booth after install, or when they are using it… but mostly they are too busy painting to send photos on. I am never surprised to hear where the next booth is being shipped. We have them all over the world. I wish I could travel to see every single one of them…. oh, the places I would see.

We continued our vacation to the west coast, driving down the Pacific Coast Highway for a week. Because of this little business & pleasure encounter though, I couldn’t help but look for all the body shops along the way….hoping to see through an open garage door and catch of glimpse of one more of the thousands of booths we have sold across America over the last 17 years.

I have included a few pictures that I took that day and a few more from the Grand Canyon itself although pictures can never capture the magnificence of seeing it with your own eyes.

Kelly Goudy

PAINT BOOTH PRICE — JUST TELL ME!!!

Do you ever get frustrated when you go online to look for something you need and find it … BUT there are no prices shown? It automatically makes me think that it is above my price range.

“It must be a lot if they aren’t willing to post the price, right?”

Sure, you can get all the details, specs, color choices … except … how much you will pay. In today’s times, price is a driving factor in major purchases. What is the Paint Booth Price? That’s why we post our prices online, for you to see what you’re getting, and for how much. There are no hidden costs or crazy upcharges either. The Paint Booth Price is what is listed.

Unfortunately, this happens a lot in the paint booth industry because of the many factors that go into designing your booth. It’s like selecting a new car… there are a lot of options that affect the price. Leather seats? Heated seats? 2WD or 4WD? Sunroof? Media Player? Navigation? Spoiler? Companies, like a car salesman, think if they can talk to you, they can sell you the options or add-ons that you may or may not need. Isn’t that what we all fear, being “sold to”?

SO WHAT GOES INTO PRICING A PAINT SPRAY BOOTH?

What type of booth do you need? Do you want to have it heated with an Air Makeup Unit? Do you need it ETL certified? Woops, have you thought about fire suppression? Do you want it powder coated? Want to add some extra lights or some additional height?

The type of airflow and optional features you choose for your paint booth will heavily impact the price you can expect to pay. However, even with all of these optional add-ons and selective features… You can still expect to see our prices, right there on our site.

HOW DO WE SELL OUR PAINT BOOTHS?

We approach every customer wanting to gain an understanding of your business. We start by asking, “What are you painting?” This is important to us because in order to send you the perfect booth, we want to know what your needs are and what you are hoping to accomplish with your new booth. This may seem like a silly question, but we have sold over 10,000 booths to ALL industries. We sell to car painters, industrial applications and to other manufacturers (of all sorts of products)! You’d be amazed at where you would find our booths. With each application, there is a booth to fit.

An impressive half of all the booths we ship out are customized, meaning that something was tweaked or added or taken off. This is because we want to develop the perfect booth for you, period. That may mean an extra light or a drive-thru booth. Whatever it is, if we can imagine it, we can design it and we can make it. With an in-house engineering department, we have the ability to quickly and easily design a custom booth and get it into production fast. (Delivery in just two weeks or less in most cases!)

We do offer guidelines for choosing your booth, but these are only guidelines – factors like your location, environmental concerns, local codes and installation will impact your total investment.

We pride ourselves in manufacturing quality booths as an affordable option for all industries. Your basic open front booths (our OFB line) can cost as little as $2,599. Enclosed finishing booths (our EFB line) cost a bit more, from $4,599 to $10,000+. We also offer very large booths – for big trucks, heavy equipment or large machinery finishing – ranging between $20,000.00 and $40,000.

Heated air makeup units can double your productivity, as well as the cost of your booth, adding upwards of $15.000.

To mimic Cuba Gooding Jr. in ‘Jerry Maguire’, “Show me the money!!!!” If you are like me, you just want to stand up sometimes when shopping online and scream… “Show me the pricing!!!!” Well, just visit www.paint-booths.com and see the pricing.

When you’re ready, with questions, feel free to give us a call and be prepared to answer, “What are you painting?”

Should you replace your Air Makeup Unit? Things to consider.

So, you have a heated booth, had it for years. Does it still work? If it does, is it working like it should? Maybe it’s time to look at a new heater and take advantage of the latest technology that will not only save you time, but money as well. (Have no idea what I am talking about? Read our post here about what makeup air is).

A heater that was manufactured ten years ago will not have the same technology or controls as a new unit because there have been many advances in the last decade. (Imagine using a cell phone from 10 years ago to do what you needed today…).

Can you control the temperature? New units have digital temperature read outs for the desired and measured temperatures. This is important information that can save you money. If the outside temperature is 75 degrees, then the burner may not be required. Without the temperature reading, your painter may be turning on the heat out of habit not necessity.

Does your unit have a cure mode? If so, is the airflow reduced during the cure cycle or are you helping to heat your town and fund the gas company? New units will reduce airflow by as much as 50% to increase burner efficiency and keep the heat in the booth longer to provide more even heat flow around the product.

Timers. New units will also have timers in the cure mode so the flash, cure, and cool down are controlled automatically, and at the end of the cure process, the booth and heater shut off automatically. This alone will save a shop 10% in fuel costs.

How are your burners? If the heater you have has a cast iron burner, chances are that the orifices are partially rusted, preventing your burner from operating to its maximum efficiency. Some burners may be closed by as much as 50%. If your booth takes a long time to heat or does not reach temperature on very cold days, this may be the problem. Most new burners, including ours, have aluminum burners that will not rust over time.

Do you know your booth pressure? Do you have control over the exhaust fan motor, or does it run full speed all the time? New heaters are designed with variable frequency drives that lets you control the speed of the exhaust fan with the turn of a knob and a pressure gauge will display the actual pressure in the booth. This system translates into longer run times between filter changes and more control over the booth pressure.

If you have an older booth and you want to update your heater, or add a heater to a currently un-heated booth… give us a call and we will walk you through up-fitting your booth with the Sure-Cure Air Makeup Unit (the newest AMU to hit the market. Manufactured by a leading paint booth manufacturer.) Our Sure-Cure AMU has a ton of safety features as well as all the latest technology to provide you with an efficient heated booth. Let our design team get to work for you.

Do I Need Paint Booth MakeUp Air? What the heck is it?

Since we have announced the arrival of the Sure-Cure AMU to the market, we have been getting a lot of questions from customers about what an Air Makeup Unit does, why it is needed and how it works. Here are the simple answers to all of those questions. We’ll try not to make it too complicated, because it’s really simple…. It provides lots of air to the paint booth.

Now, why would anyone need all that extra air? Well, it’s not really ‘extra’ air, it’s replacement – or makeup – air for air that has been used and expelled out of the booth. Booth exhaust systems use up large volumes of air from the space that it is installed. If this air is not replaced at the same rate that it is expelled, the booth, or the building, will experience negative pressure (the air pressure outside the building is greater than the air pressure inside the building).

Why is negative pressure bad? At the risk of sounding like a bunch of engineers, some indicators of negative pressure include the suction pressure that makes booth doors difficult to open, exhaust fans that don’t work properly, drafts around doors and windows that cause a poor paint job and poor indoor air quality.

What does this have to do with your painting? Pressure problems make it difficult to paint in a booth and achieve proper coating and curing. When you are able to control the booth pressure and temperature, you are able to effectively remove particulates from the air that can negatively affect the quality of your finish. These problems are more pronounced during the cold season when windows are kept closed, reducing the natural pressure-balancing effect.

When you have an air make-up system, like the Sure-Cure AMU, the unit replaces the air that is expelled by a building’s exhaust system, maintaining the proper balance between inside and outside air pressures.

Some Cool Things About Air Makeup Units:

Replacement air can be heated in the winter months or to improve curing time. You can choose to not heat the replacement air in warmer months.
Cure your paint job in under an hour, increasing your daily productivity by up to 10X
Greatly reduce infiltration of cold outdoor air and drafts through opened booth doors
Encourage proper operation of booth exhaust systems
Improve the booth’s air quality
Eliminate suction pressure at doors
Decrease load on existing HVAC system
Lower energy costs by as much as 35%
Maintain a more comfortable and productive working environment

There are many individual benefits and features that differentiate AMU models and makes. It’s in our Sure-Cure air makeup unit features that make our unit safer and easier to operate. Now that you know why you need an AMU, check out all the benefits of having our AMU.

Want to see the video that launched it all? See the Sure-Cure AMU, in action, from all angles in just 55 seconds!

THE PITFALLS OF A USED SPRAY BOOTH

I have had three phone calls in two days from people who have purchased our paint booths second (or third) hand. The problems and costs that they are going through because of poor maintenance, destructive disassembles or their inability to get permitting has made it hard on them. Although our paint booths are of high quality and built to last, there are pitfalls of buying a used booth, no matter who the manufacturer is. Don’t get a used spray booth – it’s more hassle in the end.

Money is tight. If your company has survived the Great Recession then you understand this. Your company may also need a paint booth. Buying a used paint booth can lead to many unforeseen and unexpected costs. How do you know what you’re getting?

Standard Tools is in the business of selling new spray booths, but we want to let you in on some of the costs associated with buying a used paint booth. Even if a used paint booth is provided at no cost, the potential costs can be greater than a new spray booth in the end. We have new automotive booths starting at less than $5,000.

CONDITION – A used spray booth is on the market due to one of three situations: a paint booth owner is growing and needs a larger unit, a company is going out of business or a company is no longer painting. You have no way of knowing if the paint booth was maintained and taken care of. Continue reading THE PITFALLS OF A USED SPRAY BOOTH

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