How Much Does A Paint Booth Cost, A Complete Cost Guide
When it comes to paint finishing your paint booth is often your largest expense(unless you are a large manufacturer with a lot of additional paint equipment). If your planning on opening an auto body shop, an industrial coating facility, a fabrication shop, or even a hobbyist shop you will want to consider the cost of your paint booth as you plan your building. This article will cover factors contributing to a paint booths costs and then provide simple rules of thumb to help estimate the price of a paint booth.
Factor # 1 – Amount of Air the Paint Booth Exhausts
Paint booths have to remove a significant volume of air to be able to meet NFPA 1 and speifically NFPA 33 (which is more specific to paint booths). The amount of air removed by your paint booth will depend on if it is a crossdraft, side downdraft, or downdraft. A crossdraft air requirement is approximately 100 FPM x the face area of the opening of the paint booth, while a downdraft and side downdraft booth requires 50 FPM x the footprint of the paint booth. The higher the CFM of the paint booth the higher the cost for two reasons. One is the paint booth will require a larger exhaust fan to move the appropriate volume of air. Two, you are more likely to need to replace your paint booths air leading to the need for an Air Make Up Unit. Third, a larger paint booth will require larger duct work which will result in additional cost. To keep costs of your paint booth as reasonable as possible try to keep the paint booth size to the smallest face area for a crossdraft or footprint for a downdraft as possible. For an idea of determining an appropriate paint booth size refer to this article for helpful tips.
Factor #2 (and typically the largest expense factor) – Will you need An Air Make Up Unit for the Paint Booth ?
An air make up unit replaces the air being removed from your building. It prevents you from losing all of your facilities heat in the winter and prevents excessive negative air pressure due to having a small facility that your paint booth will be located in. To determine if you may need to consider an air make up unit for your spray booth this article covers what you need to know or you can reference the calculator below to see how fast you will remove all air from your building. Essentially were trying to determine if you will remove all the air from your building in 20 minutes or less which will definitely require considering an air make up, outside of that you will have to determine if a cold paint booth in winter will be problematic for production and long term needs. In general the air make up for a paint booth will be one of the largest expenses often costing as much or more than the paint booth itself.
Please input the size of your paint booth and your building and the CFM as well as Time until the Building has all heated or cooled air exhausted will be calculated.
Factor #3 – Is the Booth a Factory Standard or Completely Custom?
Standard spray booths that are not custom engineered will be a much better cost. Standard spray booths due have size restrictions though and if you have an exact size that you need a custom engineered paint booth can often be necessary. A custom designed paint booth can end up costing quite a bit more than a pre designed paint booth due to the custom manufacturing needed and engineering work.
Factor# 4 – How Big is the Paint Booth and what style Paint Booth is it?
The size of the paint booth will require varying amounts of sheet metal and if over a certain size additional structural support. Additionally, booths typically go in the following order of increasing expense: Crossdraft, Downdraft, Side Downdraft. For a downdraft, you have to include an additional cost of concrete work as they have a concrete pit in the floor. For a side downdraft you have an additional cost of double the fans and double duct runs of a crossdraft paint booth. For a general range of prices consider the following for a guide, this is without duct work included (which is the 5th factor) and not including an air make up.
Open Face Booths
6 W 7 High 6 Deep – $2, 700
10 w 12 High 6 Deep – About $5,000 dollars
18 w x 7 high by 6 Deep – $5,871 dollars.
Enclosed Truck/ Large Industrial Booths
Cross Draft 14 Wide 10 High 24 Deep – About $12,500 dollars
Cross Draft 20 Wide 16 High 34 Deep – About $29000 dollars
Down Draft 14 Wide 10 High 24 Deep – About $16,000 dollars
Down Draft 20 Wide 16 High 30 Deep – About $35,000 dollars
Automotive Paint Booths
Basic single skin paint booth without curing capabilities 14 w 27 deep 9 high – About $14000
Automotive paint booth with cure capabilities
14 ‘ w x 9 ‘ high x 27 ‘ deep – about $50,000 – $65000 dollars
Factor # 5 – How much Duct work will your spray booth need?
Ductwork pricing will come down to two things. How big is the duct you will use and how long of duct runs will you require. Plain exhaust duct (the typical duct that is used with a spray booth) will range from $15 – $60 dollars per foot for the smallest to largest duct runs. If you have long runs of duct and larger diameter duct you may need spiral duct which is higher expense ranging from about $36 dollars a foot to $125 dollars a foot for large diameter duct. If you have multiple elbows or a really long exhaust distance you sometimes will have an added expense of a exhaust fan designed for high static resistance. There can also be a small added expense for an access duct that allows for cleaning of the booths exhaust fan (which is highly recommended).
Factor # 6 – Who is manufacturing your paint Booth?
There can be slight variances in the cost of paint booths . Additionally, you will want to make sure your paint booth meets all national codes, which you can read a good overview of national code compliance here. Each manufacturer will have varying costs but should be within 10 – 15% of each other typically and if they are not you will want to see if one company has added features like startup assistance, a different air make up size, different duct lengths, or different features in your spray booths control panel. A big factor in choosing a paint booth will be the expertise of your local support company which is always valuable and a well known, highly regarded manufacturer.
By evaluating all these costs you can better assess the cost of a potential paint booth project. You will also be able to have a rough idea of what to expect on a paint booth’s price.