Opening a Cigar Lounge: Ventilation

[JohnRogers]

Update: I got the keys yesterday and walked through the space again with the landlord. East Village Lounge: Cigar, Jazz and Blues is getting real.

So next topic, what ventilation systems work or don't work at the B&M lounge you frequent? I have some thoughts on the subject obviously but would like to hear from you.

[T.G]

The best, and probably the lowest equipment cost, is simply venting the smoke out and bringing fresh air in, possibly warming or cooling it as necessary. Of course local weather and climate can play a factor in whether or not is is feasible. Being in California, this is all most lounges here do so I can't comment much on the effectiveness of the different modern air cleaner systems and how much maintenance they need.

[CigarNut]

The local cigar lounge (The Mark) uses a combination of Smoke Eaters (2) (http://www.breathepureair.com/uas_se50.html) and Rabbit Air Minus A2 (4) (http://www.rabbitair.com/pages/minusa2-air-purifier). The HVAC in the lounge is not very good so there is little outside air exchange short of opening windows.

The air is OK but would be better with outside air exchange. Oregon has a limit of 42 people in a lounge. When the lounge is half full or more the system suffers.

Having said all that, it would be much, much worse without the SmokeEaters and Rabbit Air systems.

[ApexAZ]

Our shop has industrial fans they use to suck out the air. They only turn them on when it gets extra thick, as they are quite loud.

They also have 5 or 6 smoke eaters evenly spaced along the ceiling. I don't know what the size of the shop is, but I want to guess it's about 1200 sq feet. between the bar and the lounge chairs there's about seating for about 40 I'd guess. Sometimes on weekends the whole place fills up and you have a lot of people standing. Their ventilation is really pretty good and I have to say I really appreciate that.

[357]

Check out this basement cigar lounge with heated fresh air vents.

http://www.ryandeyer.com/cigar-room/

Ryan is the brother of an inmate who used to live near me. Obviously for a commercial design you'd want to alter plans a bit to scale up but the idea is sound. The concept is to have exhaust vents in the ceiling and walls (near the floor). Ceiling ducts lead to an exhaust fan blowing smoke outside. Wall/Floor ducts lead from outside but have a heating coil inside that are auto engaged based on how cold the air is. You can completely exchange all the air in the room very quickly with this method and not have to worry about it being too cold.

[Shadow]

Our local shop and cigar club use the VisionAir 1 and 2 The 1 is a ceiling mounted unit. The 2 is on rollers so you can move it around.

http://www.breathepureair.com/commercial-smoke-eaters.html

[Flynnster]

No experience here but a few ideas from other experience.

For the vent fans. If possible, have the actual fan near the outside of the building, pulling air thorough the ducts. This takes a much bigger fan, but works better and it really cuts down on the noise. This is how restaurant vent fans work so well.

Another thing, some lounges I've been too seem to be focusing on getting rid of the smoke smell with oder eater type machines that simply recycle the air and treat it as it goes through.
It always seems better when the ventilation is simply set up to get rid of the smoke, pump it out, and bring in fresh air instead.

[shilala]

I've never been impressed with big smoke-eaters, but most will say they're a must.
A make-up air unit that delivers lots of fresh air and a strong positive air pressure would be my choice.
I'm sure that by now there are air-quality sensors that can throttle the amount of fresh air to save energy. I used to build manual control systems that throttled the make-up air because there weren't any kinds of sensors, but that was lots of years ago.

[MagicDrop]

I do controls for HVAC and as I don't know what kind of systems are build for "cigar lounges" couldn't you just go with a ductless AC for temp possible 2 depending on layout and size, and go with a negative pressure system or a small "purge" system that would suck air in to one side of the space and empty it out the other side always moving air from the front counter area to the ceiling about the back door/wall? This would also allow people to shop without smoke in thier face!

[markem]

Consider having a negative pressure in the lounge if you share any space with others, since that will keep the cigar smoke from spilling out the doors/windows. Speaking from experience when I say that even a neutral pressure system can be smelled from 40 -50 feet away.