Basement Brewery Build

I have a question for those who've gone down this route and had to deal with residential building inspectors. I am planning a permanent location for my brewery iin the basement. I am having a SS brew stand built with NG jet burners. I am planning on having a licensed plumber run the NG lines and if need be, an electrician hookup the hood lights and blower. What I am concerned about is the reaction of our local inspector to what I'm doing in my basement and whether the code in this area is straight forward. I will follow the specs for the hood I'm buying in regards to clearance above the burners. I haven't purchased a blower yet, but am planning on the FKD 10xl installed in a ten inch run. It is capable of up to 1266 cfm but there will be a couple turns so it won't run at nameplate capacity.

http://residential.fantech.net/residential-products/inline-duct-fans/inline-exhaust-fans/

The hood will be vented out of a nearby window and I want to make the final section of duct that attaches to the window removable so it can go back to being a window when I'm not brewing.

I'm sure a lot of you are thinking I should avoid the inspector as he'll be freaked out by such a contraption and the electric and plumbing is easy to handle (I am definitely not running black pipe myself, my compressed air system I built with black pipe in my wood shop has a small leak somewhere), however, I plan on finishing the basement soon using the brewery as a centerpiece and want things up to code.

Edit: Hood is 6 1/2 feet by 4 feet and 2 feet high.

One other thing, for makeup air I plan on opening a large egress window about 20 feet away. I know that is not terribly energy efficient, but I figure with the burners running it shouldn't get too cold down there.

You might be overly concerned about the small leak in your high compression air system and how that would translate to natural gas. Your gas system will be a much lower pressure and less likely to leak actually. You can also smell the gas. And guess what? A gas leak is much easier to find. At the risk of getting beaten up... here goes.... A SMALL gas leak is easily found with flame. We are talking about small leaks in spaces that aren't tightly enclosed. I did it all the time as an appliance repair technician. Again, you are much less likely to have a leak in a low pressure system anyhow.

To each his own comfort level though. If you are planning on making the final connection to the rig with a standard gas appliance flex connector, don't install the rig prior to inspection. Just tell the inspector you are planning to get a range for your basement. In most instances I like to stay with the truth. It serves me well, however when dealing with the government......

Every local town/township/city, has their own codes that get tacked onto the state codes. It starts with the supply type (propane/natural) gas being used then the service has to be large enough to handle the volume. You then need the gas piping to the brewery to meet code. Once the gas is done then you need a hooded positive draft system that will create a draft capable of pulling and exhausting all burnt and un-burnt fuels to the outside.
You also need so many cubic feet of free air space per 1000 btuh for makeup air, to run the burners of the brewery and any other gas appliance in that area all at at the same time. The totaled gas btuh in cubic feet and total supply of make up air has to be available, or a makeup air duct needs to be installed to meet the demand. They don't count you opening a window as a factor in makeup air.

My advise to you is get a qualified plumber to go over the system for you. It may be worth paying him to pipe in the gas line and figure out the draft system for you.

If you do it yourself you would need at least a plumbing, fire, and electrical permit.
You then have to figure out the total house demand, and give them a piping diagram of all existing and new appliance layouts. If it is a homemade burner appliance setup you need to have all specs approved. then the electrical service size and load factors.

lots of bs getting it approved installed and inspected

I too am building my brewery in the basement. I have my B10 almost completed awaiting the gas line. I have called 4 plumbers to come out and run the line. I am going to run it myself after talking to a plumber friend of mine, he will flare the ends. I am trying to figure out the size of copper tube to use having 1/2" entering the house bla bla bla.

Top photo below is the 12" inline vent fan for the exhaust hood that I got from a hydroponics shop. Fresh air return is in a room adjacent to brewery.

Below that is the hood for the B10 that I won at an auction for $110. I am in the process of tiling the wall around the B10 so the wall won't burn. I have a 1" airspace behind the tile and existing wall to keep everything cool. Might be over kill but oh well.

Go to your local permit office and ask them what they want to see. Than there is no issue when they show up.

Basement brewery is 98% complete!!! I fired up the stand today and brewed my first all grain batch on the Brutus. First batch is a brown ale. Recipe called for a SG of 1.066 and I was able to get 1.073. Pretty good for not knowing what to do. Scored my barley crusher on CL and gap was already set. I followed Bobby M's procedure for conditioning the malt pregrind. Gonna be hard to wait for ferment to complete.

I am getting closer. Just need to finish running the 8" exhaust line to the nearby window and connect up the tri-clover fittings that arrived before I left for Europe last week, then I'm good to go. One more weekend aught to do it.

I ended up having our furnace guy run the gas line since he had to come out to fix a boiler in the basement anyway. No permit so far. I'll deal with that when I finish the basement and do a mea culpa if necessary.

Yeah I think as far as you have proper ventilation you should be fine. It would be no different then having an apartment built in the basement.

joety said:

I am getting closer. Just need to finish running the 8" exhaust line to the nearby window and connect up the tri-clover fittings that arrived before I left for Europe last week, then I'm good to go. One more weekend aught to do it.

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I ran a 10" with a huge inline duct fan. My CO monitor did not register a thing and the room warmed about 5 degrees at the most.

joety said:

I ended up having our furnace guy run the gas line since he had to come out to fix a boiler in the basement anyway. No permit so far. I'll deal with that when I finish the basement and do a mea culpa if necessary.

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I didn't pull a permit either! I don't plan on moving until I move to the old folks home.