DIY Clean Air Flow-hood
On how to build a cheap low-tech fiberglass-free efficient flow-hood!
- video presentation: 53 minutes
- instructional videos: 37 minutes
- Q&A Support
Created by: Dan Tura
My Story on building clean air flow-hoods
I’ve started to make spawn in 2005, and at first I had a glovebox that I used for a while with medium results. It wasn’t easy because most times my cultures or the spawn that I was making were getting infected with competitor organisms (I lost about 40% of my work and materials). In 2006 I started to work with a professional flowhood for the first time and I felt the difference, this time I had about 98% success.
In 2010 I built my first flowhood with materials bought form China. I invested about $500 in it. This wasn’t a simple flowhood though -it was built to recycle the clean air which was great because made work efficient and that’s what I needed. Because it was like a closet I could make plenty of spawn with it for my mushroom grow projects
In 2013 I build my second flowhood -i used plywood and a small filter and a used blower, even like this my investment in this one was about $250. It was a simple flowhood and I used it for some years until I got worried of fiberglass. HEPA filters are made of fiberglass and one day I saw fiberglass particles on my hands. As a mycologist I knew that I have to build a better flowhood, one that was equally efficient but with no fiberglass in it.
This one was pretty good for small scale mushroom grow projects. It’s efficiency was about 98-99% (in total I lost about 1-2% of my work to competitor organisms)
In 2015 I built my first fiberglass-free flowhood. This not only that it was fiberglass free but also it was very efficient (99.9%). The filter that I used was a non-HEPA commercial filter with a higher efficiency than conventional HEPA filters and I felt the difference. Even today I can count on my fingers how many times my work got taken over by competitor organisms. At first I thought that is my transfers methodology but it wasn’t. This was a simple cardboard made flowhood and costed about $70 to make.
I still use it today with great efficiency and practically the same filter. I didn’t use any filter efficiency in over 5 years while I can’t feel a difference in the air current rate (in HEPA filters as time passes the air current rate is affected the more you use the flowhood)
In 2017 I built my forth flowhood. A simple fiberglass-free fan-filter unit. I used wood boards to build this one and got excited when I finished it.
Over time I realized that building flowhoods for me it was a process and that I succeeded to build low-cost highly efficient flowhoods that have no fiberglass in them then I compared what the market has to offer and came to the conclusion that we can build better flowhoods with less investment. So here I am ready to share this with you. On the market you’ll find used flowhoods from $300 up, new fan-filter units from $500 or professional flowhoods that cost several thousands of $. To this adds up shipping expenses, and fiberglass. I think the best is for you to build your own like I did.
The advantage of building your own..
Conventional-new
- Flowhood cost: over $1100
- Shipping cost: $100-300
- Efficient but cloggs up in time
- Fiberglass-HEPA filter equiped
DIY Flow-hood
- Flowhood building instruction cost $75
- Investment into materials: up to $70 (the cheap version)
- no shipping involved
- fiberglass-free
- more efficient (compared to conventional ones)
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
This is the cheap alternative of any conventional clean air flow-hood. Efficiency is a standard thing whether you use an expensive flow-hood or a low-tech one. This will be a great addition for you if you’re on a low budget but want to make your own spawn, have your own culture library or perform mycology experiments or develop new interesting products for the market
If you’re constantly worried about fiberglass particles in general, this is going to be a great change so you can work without thinking about the possible health hazards that conventional HEPA filter containing flow-hoods can cause
This will teach you how to build three types of flow-hoods: a) a simple cardboard flow-hood; b) a plywood flow-hood; c) a clean air recycle flow-hood. You’ll be able to choose the type that you want.
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN
1 -The Flowhood Basics
+ Lesson 1 – Flow-hood types: advantages and dis-advantages
+ Lesson 2 – Filters & blowers: what to pick and why
+ Lesson 3 – Matching the filter size to a blower: airflow calculus
+ Lesson 4 – Ways to check flow-hood efficiency
2 – Details On How To Build The Flowhoods
+ Lesson 1 – Building a $55 fan-filter unit
+ Lesson 2 – Building the magic box
+ Lesson 3 – On how to build a simple plywood flow-hood
3 – Details On How To Build A Recycled Clean Air Flowhood
+ Lesson 1 – Flow-hood structure and air currents dynamics
+ Lesson 2 – Airflow rate calculus
+ Lesson 3 – Details on how to build this type of flow-hood
About The Instructor
I’m Dr T, I’m a mycologist and I’m building flowhoods since 2010. I’ve been always convinced that I need to come up with something better than what the market has to offer. I built low-cost, low-tech and fiberglass free flowhoods that over compete in efficiency most of the ones that you’ll see on the market. Find out more about me.
Here's What Others Have To Say About The Help They Got
“Dr Tura’s Online class really helped me round out my knowledge of basic mushroom cultivation. I learned the fundamentals to a functional and clean workspace, the why’s, how’s, and what’s to spawn production, and even how to build an affordable laminar flow hood. The program is designed for the curious mycophile starting out or for that hobby grower that needs to re-evaluate their processes.” Michael Heim – Boulder, CO
“I just wanted to show you what we cooked up. Thanks for the course, it really helped a lot.
Yeah she took a lot of effort, very stoked with the outcome (and the 3m filters doing what they are supposed to).”
Byron, South Africa
“Dr. Dan has a bunch of excellent information in his instructional videos and diy guide for a cheap and highly effective flow hood.
I used the information to make a design of my own using similar materials for about $80 and have had ZERO contaminants on my first three sessions pouring Petrie dishes and innoculating them! Who knew you didn’t need to spend a fortune on a fancy HEPA filter.
” Alex M. – Santa Barbara, CA
DIY Clean Air Flowhood
$75
- video presentation: 53 minutes
- instructional videos: 37 minutes
- Q&A Support
Is This Training Program Right For You?
WHO IS THIS FOR
- Mushroom passionate people wanting to grow mushrooms at home and considering to become independent from spawn producers
- Mushroom farm owners interested to make their own spawn or to build their own culture library
- Entrepreneurs wanting to launch a mushroom spawn business
- Those that care about their own health and who want to switch from fiberglass filters to non-fiberglass
- Those interested in fungal material projects (structural composites)
- Those interested in orchid growing or electronics
WHO IS THIS NOT FOR
- Those who want to keep purchasing their spawn from other companies
- Those that own a HEPA filter based flowhood and are not interested in swithcing to a non-fiberglass flowhood
FAQs
Your access to this course is for one year. So once you enroll you have one year to build your flowhood. If you need more time please let me know and we’ll work it out.
While you get through the info write down questions and put up a list then submit that to the support center and I’ll get back to you ASAP. This comes with 3 months of support
The info includes the following: video presentations (power point presentations -60%), instructional videos -40%, text 1%
For answers to your questions please contact me via the contact form
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