Blowing glass in store..who to contact, laws, etc.

[JDeMoss]

My wife is going in with some friends in their art gallery. They want me to set up a glass station in the store. Who do I need to contact or get info from? Fire Dept? Health officials? anything else I need to think about? I've done demos and taught classes for years indoors, but nothing on a permanent basis.

Thanks, I'm sure there is a ton of info on here, so I apologize if it is a repeat question.

Jesse

[akmewon]

talk to your local fire marshall...

[Greymatter Glass]

fire marshal is the best bet for good info....

you'll also need to consider zoning. At a certain point they want you to be in a manufacturing zone.... Here it's based on the total BTU of open flames...so if you're gonna set up a delta mag, you might consider doing that after any inspections... set up a smaller torch like a minor or a lynx for the time being.

In general a commercial zoning allows for "light manufacturing" as long as you're not pissing anyone off with weird odors, loud equipment, etc...

I would also build a shop-in-a-shop kind of thing. a closed room with large windows, it's own HVAC, and a secure lock on a good door... You'll need ventilation, and there's no sense in pulling all the AC out of the gallery.

[JDeMoss]

are there usually regs on size of hoods? My buddy that works for the fire department said they don't have a clue as we're in a small town and they've probably never dealt with it. Thanks guys. I doubt I can build a seperate room in the space. I think they want a small little space....I imagine I'll be doing my big work at my shop and pendants, etc at this location.

[schmoinkel]

Going through this shit right now my self. Its like a three ring circus with all the hoops you have to jump through. I just moved into a warehouse/business park type thing, 1200 sqft space, a nice change from the 240 sqft I was in

Had to submit whats called a clearance form to the county, which is sent to the zoning board and then forwarded to the fire marshal apon approval, which was denied. I was told to call the planning and development services department and found out that the denial was because I didn't do a change of occupancy for the space. Which basically means that they have to make sure the building must be made sure that it is up to code for the type of business that I want to have there. Being that the building I in is larger than 5000 sqft total I have to hire a architect to do architectural plans for the space and all the shit I'm going to have in there and have an engineer do the plans for the gases and such..... ugh!

So this is how I see it in my case, dealing with the county, change of occupancy, zoning, fire marshal, hazardous materials permit, business license...then maybe more fire marshal after everything is actually in place and set up

I'm very much on the verge of running from this bureaucratic bull shit but I really want to get legal and be on the up and up

I'm glad you brought this up though I could really use some input too. Last time we did this it was easy, it must be cause I'm dealing with the county now.

Good luck

Scott

[barefoot stash]

As you can see from Scott's story, this varies greatly from place to place. Being located in a small town in Idaho will probably work to your favor. Usually the more densely populated the area, the tighter the zoning/permitting laws. Is the town trying to "improve the area?" This can also work greatly in your favor. We were able to get away with a lot since we set up shop in what was called an "economic enterprise zone." ie. future gentrification area. Now if we were to try to move the studio there would be a mountain of paper work and permitting fees that the city brushed aside for us just to clean up the area.

As far as hood regs..that is usually more of an engineering challenge than a permitting one. If you want to work in an a/c gallery space without jacking up the bill, look into a closed loop hood system that will provide it's own makeup air instead of pulling from the rest of the space. Search the threads there are a few different designs floating around.

[full_kiln]

i've also heard you can't have hose barbs with clamps, you need the b fittings