Here freezing temperatures are about 6 months a year, and every fall i run into this situation but this year i have more chems leftover (full or partly used containers) than usual.
I don’t have a garage or heated outdoor space yet. Storage places don’t allow chems and are very expensive here.
I don’t want to gamble with my family’s health. If i store them in a closet in the basement is there any way to trap the vapors? Some kind of air filter that would work? Carbon? Other ideas?
I’m not talking about sh or flammable stuff. But even when closed some fumes/vapors escape because there is a smell. Hmmmmmm is @CaCO3Girl still around?
Hola! Lol! I come back when you throw up the bat signal. I’ve moved out of the lab and into regulatory full time so I’m not on here much.
To answer your question….ugh, the bottles should not be smelling when caped and completely wiped off. If they are you should complain to the manufacturer. Let’s just say for arguments sake something is getting out…yeah well that thing is no longer in the formula then because it all evaporated away, which does you no good! Chemical manufacturers are SUPPOSED to ensure their products don’t leak…unless it is something like SH that needs to gas off or explode. But again, if your SH container is doing a weeble woble impression then you don’t have the SH content you once did.
Having said all of that. If I were storing these in my house for the winter I would gather up all the safety data sheets and put like chemicals with like chemicals. For example, anything with a pH of 10 or above goes in one big tote/bin and gets sealed. Anything with a pH below 4 goes into a different tote/bin and gets sealed. Everything else goes in a different tote/bin and gets sealed. I’m talking about the big black and yellow totes. I found an actual dead animal almost totally decomposed in one and never smelt it. It may not be a hermetic seal but it should do the job. My concern would be acid fumes interacting with caustic fumes or SH fumes because you can make some potent toxic gas that way, so best to avoid that situation.
If you just have money to burn you can buy a flammability cabinet. Then you could store everything together and they are manufactured not to allow leaks. It doesn’t matter if the stuff isn’t flammable that’s going in there, the idea should still work. If you do put flammable stuff in a cabinet like that it has to be grounded to avoid sparks and static electricity.
I keep mine in the basement during the winter, as I don’t heat my pole building unless I am in it. I have a cart I keep most of them in, everything is bagged. The powders I leave outside in the pole building, the liquids get stored indoors. It is a pain, every winter, to bring all the freezable stuff out of the pole building and into the basement, hence the cart. I made a walk out basement so I can wheel it in. Bilco doors would be problematic.
I figure if my 275 gallon (1040.99 liters) home heating oil tank sits in the basement and I don’t smell it I am good. My basement is at least 1500 sq ft and I store all my paints/stains in a separate area in a cabinet, along with all the caulking.
