Just how warm will my kiln room get?

[Shelley Lewis]

I just ordered my first kiln...yippee! It will be in the basement, and I currently store canned goods and extra rice, etc down there. The room is 12x14 and the kiln interior is 16" square. I plan on using fans to vent through the window. Approximately how many degrees can I expect the room temp to rise while fusing small to medium pieces? Thanks for helping a newbie

[Tony Smith]

My bathtub kiln, 42x26x13 raises the basement temperature maybe 5 degrees in the winter, but it comes back down by the next day. In the summer, there's more of a cumulative effect if I'm firing every day. After a week of firings in the summer, I turn on the vent fan.

Tony

[JestersBaubles]

I doubt you'll need the fans. Smallish kiln/largish room. It will be nice to work in in the winter

Dana W.

[Shelley Lewis]

Good info, thanks! What about the blast of heat when the kiln is crashed? My food supply will be about 4-5 feet from kiln and DH thinks we should put a barrier (fire resistant drywall) in front of food rack. Any thoughts or opinions on that?

[Mike Jordan]

I have the edge of my Skutt GM1014 two feet away and level with 2 shelves filled with jars of canned fruit and has been for 4 years and they don't even get warmer than what ever temperature it is in my two car sized garage. You can set a thermometer or two on your selfs to keep an eye on it but I don't think you will end up with fried rice.

Mike

[Glass Fever]

How high is the ceiling? I have high ceilings in my basement and there is no noticeable temperature difference a few feet away from the kiln even if I open it to crash cool. Keep in mind that's kind of hard on the kiln, and is not really necessary unless you need to stop a slump or something.

[Morganica]

First, don't crash the kiln. Not great for the kiln, doesn't really do that much for the glass.

How warm the room will get depends on the room and the temperatures outside. One winter in Minneapolis my upstairs radiators failed when it was -20F outside, and I woke to find an eighth of an inch of ice on the shower walls and bathroom mirror. It was an attic-turned-master-bedroom-suite about 800sf, with ceilings at 20 feet in the center, maybe 4 feet at the edges of the side walls.

The rental agents said they couldn't fix it until spring. I had a little 9" deep JenKen tabletop kiln, so I made something and fired it in the bedroom, every night until spring. That little kiln kept the space at about 60F through the night. (And I fired with the lid closed but the peephole open)

So yep, it can warm up the space a bit.

[Peter Angel]

I would be more concerned about kiln fumes in an unventilated space!

(cough, cough, cough).

[JestersBaubles]

[quote="Peter Angel"]I would be more concerned about kiln fumes in an unventilated space!

(cough, cough, cough).[/quotep

even when I fire with fiber paper or thinfire, there's not much in the way of fumes. A little initial burnoff of binders, that's about it.

Dana W