Setting up New Darkroom

Bradlees · Feb 28, 2014

I've read through a lot of these posts, so I'm not being entirely lazy here. I'm new to this forum. I'm setting up a darkroom in my basement. There is a room that I believed was once used for the same purpose. I'm wondering about recommendations for setting up a ventilation system. Any ideas for a relatively inexpensive means to set up an exhaust fan?

Also, any recommendations in general would be appreciated.

Thanks

timor · Feb 28, 2014

Hi and welcome here. Glad, that next guy is setting up the darkroom. :thumbup:
Is it so, that your basement has no ventilation at all ? No ducts ? If it has, I think just the fan to force faster air exchange would be sufficient. Well, you've got to check Home Depot for bathroom fans. Try to get one, which is quiet, constant buzz might be annoying.

Gavjenks · Feb 28, 2014

Yes a bathroom fan is more than sufficient, unless you're using certain vintage 19th century chemical techniques. Any modern stuff like kodak or ilford or whatever don't worry about it (do get a bathroom fan but don't need a fume hood).
The fan should go somewhere further away than just right outside the door of your dark room obviously. But doesn't even really have to go outside, as long as it's far enough away to not just immediately circulate back in again.
Outside would be nice if you can swing it though.

Rick58 · Feb 28, 2014

I'm probably not a good one to ask since I've never used ventilation fans in any of my permanent or temporary DR's. I'm aware of the warnings, but to be honest, the chemicals never bothered me.

webestang64 · Mar 1, 2014

I suggest buying a few books on darkrooms....... like this...... and yes, put a vent in there!
The Darkroom Handbook: Michael Langford: 9780394724683: Amazon.com: Books

Bradlees · Mar 1, 2014

Thanks. Will a bathroom fan let any light through? There is an opening in the top corner of the room that my water and steam pipes run through. It opens on to a laundry room that has two windows in it. I am afraid some light could enter through this ventilation due to the ground level windows in the other room.

timor · Mar 1, 2014

Is there a lot of light sipping thru this opening ? Can you see inside that room with this light only ? If so maybe a sort of hood over this hole on the side of laundry room to stop direct rays of light would be sufficient. Even cardboard shield should do for the light from far windows. But how it looks, when the light is turned on in that room ? A lot gets into your intended DR ?

terri · Mar 1, 2014

timor said:
Is there a lot of light sipping thru this opening ? Can you see inside that room with this light only ? If so maybe a sort of hood over this hole on the side of laundry room to stop direct rays of light would be sufficient. Even cardboard shield should do for the light from far windows. But how it looks, when the light is turned on in that room ? A lot gets into your intended DR ?

Yes, the OP will be the only one who can best make that call, and he will have to do with his own two eyes. If he can stand in there and not see any light, after waiting for several minutes for his eyes to adjust, then he should have no problem.

How large is this opening? Even a tiny amount of light could be taken care of using insulation foam, or something similar, to stuff into the area. If we're talking about light leaks from another room it could be very miniscule, not enough to really fog your paper or film.

Gavjenks · Mar 1, 2014

Yes a fan will let light through if you just slap it in the middle of a wall made of plywood or something. But if you attach it to some ducting (or cheap vacuum cleaner hose type stuff, or whatever looks reasonable given the fan and what is sitting aroudn in your hardware store) and have a couple twists and turns in there, you should be fine. Line it with cheap black cloth inside the duct if it's still an issue.

Alternatively, attach some sort of a hood right outside the fan and another one inside, so that light would have to bounce a couple times at least to end up inside. Then again, use black hoods or line with black felt. If you're in a basement to begin with, there shouldn't be a ton of light outside the darkroom, so you probably won't have to be too hardcore about it.

It also depends what kind of developing you're doing. Stand development of 35mm rolls in a tank? I wouldn't bother with any ventilation. You don't even have to be in the room most of the time, and the liquid isn't exposed to evaporate or fume easily.

Standing there for half an hour with large format sheet film trays with tons of surface area? Much more important.

And I work with bleach for my developing process usually (stripping the emulsion from one side of double emulsion xray film), which necessitates a vent more than the actual developing. So if you're doing special stuff some chemicals might be more noxious.

Bradlees · Mar 5, 2014

I don't plan to develop the film in the darkroom, no. Just making prints. Its possible that I don't need to ventilate if my time is fairly short and broken up?

Excuse me if I've got the jargon wrong, its been a solid 17 years since I've done this.

It's pretty exciting to get this going.

timor · Mar 5, 2014

Bradlees said:
I don't plan to develop the film in the darkroom, no. Just making prints. Its possible that I don't need to ventilate if my time is fairly short and broken up?

Excuse me if I've got the jargon wrong, its been a solid 17 years since I've done this.

It's pretty exciting to get this going.

O c'mon man. I have no ventilation in my DR at all. Dektol smells a bit, so does stop bath but now I am using citric acid. That's all. Nevertheless I am often in and out, it is not like I am sitting 3 hours strait in the dark, prints shouldn't be that long in the water, especially RC prints. If you feel, that the air is too thick in the DR, then think about forced ventilation.

pondball · Mar 11, 2014

Congrats on your foray back to a darkroom

I used to spend hours in the darkroom... And yes sometimes upwards or more than three... And yeah it stunk in there... Especially the stop bath... That was over twenty years ago before all the health hazard warnings were the going thing... Having said that, had I stayed longer in that house I would have installed a fan... The fan of choice for me in both my bathroom renos recently is from Panasonic. They have exceptionally powerfully, reasonably priced whisper quiet fans... You can hardly hear them and they move a lot of air to boot... Depending on where you live and the construction of your house you should be able to run some flexible ducting outside from the fan... Nothing is impossible. I don't think light would be a problem with these as they are well built... Nothing a little duct tape couldn't fix at least. My old darkroom was essentially just the downstairs bathroom and the only light that could seep in was under the door... And that I sealed off with a towel... Never had a problem that way

When we moved to the country I had to give up my darkroom... Too many chemicals to throw back into the water table here! Especially with three small kids at the time. Sad time for me as I basically gave up photography for a good twenty years or more until my recent purchase of a new D700... Still have my old canon stuff lying around somewhere though.

On that note... Just had a good tip from a fellow TPFer here that I could still use my old canon film cameras, shoot my favourite HP5, develop the negs then use a scanner to play around with the printing aspect. Everything can be done with a light bag, in a ventilated area... No real setup required except a dust free place to hang the film to dry.

Bradlees · Mar 14, 2014

I'm going to give it a whirl without the ventilation. In our high school darkroom there was no way the vent, if it was turned on, could possibly move enough air to make a difference. I spent a lot of time in there. Whether or not it had any effect on me is debatable....