PDA

View Full Version : Smelting bothering neighbors ?



kooz
03-19-2008, 02:32 PM
I have been smelting down my WW's in my garage with both the doors open and a fan going, but would like to move the operation out to my backyard or driveway for even better ventilation, I wonder if the city could cause me any grief for melting lead ? anybody ever had the city or your neighbors give you problems about this ?

madcaster
03-19-2008, 03:07 PM
My neighbor was messing with something a LOT more potent than smelting lead,meth,and got busted for it as well,right in the act.
If you are on your own land,they should not say anything I don't think,although the city-if you are in town limits,might.

looseprojectile
03-19-2008, 03:10 PM
Nope, I live in the country and have a burning permit.

If the neighbors even make a peep, turnabout is then, fair play.
Gives you something to do in your spare time. like 4:00 AM.
Life is good

cbrick
03-19-2008, 03:19 PM
I would think this would depend entirely on where you live (state, county,city) and your neighbors and how close to them you are. If your neighbors are very close even if they wouldn't complain it wouldn't be very neighborly to force them to breath it.

I live where a lot of people think that if you park your SUV global warming is over. Not if they park theirs, just if you park yours. I use caution when smelting and try to do it on a breezy day to dispurse the smoke. I would probably be looked upon as lower than a child molestor and could probably get life in the electric chair for such a ending life on the planet activity.

Rick

standles
03-19-2008, 03:31 PM
If they cause a problem then anonymously call the LEO and let them know that you saw them packing in bundles of something that looked alot like cocain bundles you've seen on TV. tell them they apparently are storing it in the floorboards. You also have seen several folks coming buy at all hours of day and night.


Get a cooler with cold beer and a lawn charit to watch the show.


:drinks:

cbrick
03-19-2008, 03:37 PM
If they cause a problem then anonymously call the LEO and let them know that you saw them packing in bundles of something that looked alot like cocain bundles you've seen on TV. tell them they apparently are storing it in the floorboards. You also have seen several folks coming buy at all hours of day and night. Get a cooler with cold beer and a lawn charit to watch the show. :drinks:

If I did a proper post on this the mods would delete it and probably throw me out.

Rick

JSnover
03-19-2008, 03:55 PM
Depends on the neighbors. I had one of them call the police over an antifreeze spill. My smelting area is on the other side of the house, though, out of his sight.

Lloyd Smale
03-19-2008, 05:04 PM
id bet if you lived in CA theyd probably give you a prisson term for doing it. Why dont you just walk over and ask your neigbors if they mind. A couple minutes of showing respect for them will go along ways.

standles
03-19-2008, 05:08 PM
Rick:

I assume you knew I was joking about that. If not lighten up a little,


It follows an old joke about the sheriff's dept showing up and serving a warrant on a guy for hiding marijuana in his firewood pile. After splitting every log open they found nothing and left.

Later his friend called and asked had the sheriff been out. He said yes. The friend said your welcome. I didn't have any money for a birthday gift so the least I could do was get your firewood split for you. :)

Down South
03-19-2008, 05:23 PM
LOL, Nope, I don't have any neighbors.

sniper
03-19-2008, 05:29 PM
Depends on the neighbors. I had one of them call the police over an antifreeze spill. My smelting area is on the other side of the house, though, out of his sight.

Yeah! I don't tell my neighbors much about what I am doing, and I have good neighbors.

It doesn't take much to screen an activity. A barbecue, lawn chairs, distance, a not so large shrub.
Camouflage...Wear a chef's hat, and have an Emeril book propped nearby. :mrgreen:

Its best to be discreet, even if you are doing nothing illegal.

Old Ironsights
03-19-2008, 05:32 PM
"Yeah, bring your turkey right on over and dip it in the fryer... I'll be (waaaaay) over here..." :twisted:

wheelgunner
03-19-2008, 05:37 PM
I had a neighbor complain about the odor, his house is about 15 feet from mine. I simply moved to the other side of the house and that neighbor (30 feet away) hasn't said anything. Last big batch I just used our clubs auxiliary range since I was mining the backstop anyway, made it a much shorter trip from the backstop to the melting pot.

Funny thing, a few other members saw what I was doing and were interested, a couple have started casting as well. Were going to start "casting night" at the club and it'll be nice to have some conversation while casting. 'Course now I have to share my lead supply, but with about 5 ton a year shot into our backstops, I guess there might be enough for me, lol.

cohutt
03-19-2008, 07:22 PM
Damn, burned another turkey!


http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/bermining%202/misc008.jpg

wolfspotter
03-19-2008, 08:57 PM
I've rented in the same four apartment building for over 10 years and work for my landlady. Started having problems with a new tenant having loud parties every other night so I let my landlady listen on the other end of the phone and another tenant called the local police because her children couldn't sleep.
Police came, the new tenant was drunk, belligerent and said he could do what he pleased! Cops left and things got worse till they came back with a warrant for his arrest and a night in jail.

A few days later in retaliation he turned me in to the county claiming melting lead in the back yard and reloading bullets was a felony. A friend of mine, the building inspector called the landlady and they both agreed there was no problem, nothing illegal and the new tenant got a thirty day notice to get out.

I live in the village limits and surrounding neighbors are very interested in what I'm doing and offer veggies from their gardens because of all the things I do for them. One even gave me a deal on all his reloading equipment since he was getting on in years. :castmine:

looseprojectile
03-20-2008, 12:35 AM
in Tacoma Washington today. The landlord rented a house to a family that he, the landlord lived in for 2 or 3 decades and all that time he allegedly smelted a large amount of lead on that site. He said it was his HOBBY. The state tested the dirt and found as much as 2300 PPM lead on site. The authorities are making the owner put up a fence to keep anyone off the land.
The tennants are suing for damages to a developmentally challanged child that has a high level of lead in his system. The child didn't start crawling till it was one year old.
It was said that 250 PPM is the standard at which the State steps in to clean up a site contaminated with lead. It was said also that most contaminated industrial sites are not thad bad.
What's a large amount of lead? Five pounds? Should we all turn ourselves in? Is this gonna be another way to keep all of us from making our own ammo?
Dismal thoughts!!!

454PB
03-20-2008, 12:44 AM
I use smokeless flux for casting, but I've often wondered about the people that use other fluxes and put a vent fan in the window to blow the fumes outside. If they really feel that there is dangerous lead fumes created, why are they pumping them out into the neighborhood?

JSnover
03-20-2008, 08:19 AM
Seems like you could avoid soil contamination by casting over concrete or laying a sheet or two of plywood down. My entire property is on a hillside so I pretty much have to cast on the deck but I cover the wood with an old throw rug....

DLCTEX
03-20-2008, 08:31 AM
Lead fumes? No, but what else is in the WW, lead pipe, roof vent jacks, sewer pipe joints, etc., etc. The lead does not get hot enough to be a danger in itself. I also vent out fumes from my heating furnace and water heater. I grew up with open space heaters and can remember having headaches from the fumes, better to vent them. DALE

Freightman
03-20-2008, 10:19 AM
I live SW of one of the nations largest feed yards 15 miles and the prevailing wind is from the SW what little smoke and order I generate doesn't even register on the scale. What is that smell said the tourist to the Texan "MONEY" says he.

Junior1942
03-20-2008, 11:09 AM
A bunch of you guys need to move. Why, I bet y'all can't even pee off your front porch.

imashooter2
03-20-2008, 11:20 AM
A bunch of you guys need to move. Why, I bet y'all can't even pee off your front porch.

Yeah, but you can't have take out Chinese in 10 minutes either. Everybody makes choices.

JSnover
03-20-2008, 12:11 PM
A bunch of you guys need to move. Why, I bet y'all can't even pee off your front porch.

Lord knows I'm tryin!

The trick is not to get caught. It must be illegal to shoot Tree Rats off my deck but so far nobody's noticed[smilie=1:

jonk
03-20-2008, 02:22 PM
I do my smelting outside, either on a Coleman stove or with a propane weed burner- depending how much I plan on smelting. So all the smoke stays outside. Neighbors have never complained other than to make sure everything is ok with all the smoke which was considerate of them, actually.

I do get a little smoke when making the bullets in the basement from the flux, but a window with an exhaust fan fitted takes care of that. Again, no complaints.

38 Super Auto
03-21-2008, 12:29 PM
in Tacoma Washington today. The landlord rented a house to a family that he, the landlord lived in for 2 or 3 decades and all that time he allegedly smelted a large amount of lead on that site. He said it was his HOBBY. The state tested the dirt and found as much as 2300 PPM lead on site.

I understand what you're saying about tyrannical govt officials, but I think it's a good idea to keep your casting and smelting areas cleaned up.

I sweep up after every smelting or casting session and recyle all the lead flakes into the smelter. I would rather do this than risk contaminating my work area and adjacent yard. It's worth it for me and it only takes 5 min or so.

I think to get 2300ppm Pb in the yard, this guy was pretty careless.

EMC45
03-21-2008, 12:32 PM
I smelt and cast in my carport. Sometimes it stinks and is smoky. I use a turkey fryer and cast iron pot. My neighbor asked my darling wife what I was doing hunched over the turkey fryer. Well she says, he's casting bullets.(I have told the missus to not tell anyone) Well the neighbor said that her and her Dad used to melt lead and cast bullets all the time! Cool! now if I can try to sequester some of the old casting gear[smilie=1:

JSnover
03-21-2008, 01:28 PM
I do my smelting outside, either on a Coleman stove or with a propane weed burner- depending how much I plan on smelting. So all the smoke stays outside. Neighbors have never complained other than to make sure everything is ok with all the smoke which was considerate of them, actually.

I do get a little smoke when making the bullets in the basement from the flux, but a window with an exhaust fan fitted takes care of that. Again, no complaints.

I wish I had neighbors like that!
True story: A couple of years ago, late spring, early morning, my daughter threw a couple of pizza boxes into the fireplace to take the chill out of the room. Neighbor called the fire dept. to report smoke coming from the chimney.

cbrick
03-21-2008, 01:47 PM
Neighbor called the fire dept. to report smoke coming from the chimney.


Hhmmm . . . Did anyone think to ask the neighbor just what is it that should come out of a chimney?

HeavyMetal
03-21-2008, 01:52 PM
I live in CA and do a fair amount of casting. I don't smelt on a regular basis and as long as I'm careful with fumes/smoke it's not been an issue.

I have used Marvlux as a flux and it does not make fumes or smoke which is a large advantage sadly it does corrode the pot up so I don't use it in my casting pot.

Bought some stuff from Art Green to flux with, it's great, you can actually watch it do it's thing on top of the melt, it isn't corrosive but it does smoke.

I have a fireplace that has access inside and outside I cast in that and the smoke goes right up the chimney. it's a rare day that I actually see smoke at the top of the stack.

Leftoverdj
03-21-2008, 03:35 PM
It helps if the neighbors think you are too crazy to mess with.

cbrick
03-21-2008, 04:41 PM
It helps if the neighbors think you are too crazy to mess with.

hehe, I bet it would. [smilie=1:

jackley
03-21-2008, 07:15 PM
A bunch of you guys need to move. Why, I bet y'all can't even pee off your front porch.

I'm with you front porch, back porch, side yard it don't matter. And as far as smelting every one around here has guns and use them. If they see me out they just wave and ask for me to make them some.

Jerry

birddog1520
03-21-2008, 08:22 PM
I did it the easy way I moved to a place where I don't have any neighbors.

Randy, The Birddog.

pumpguy
03-21-2008, 08:42 PM
I live SW of one of the nations largest feed yards 15 miles and the prevailing wind is from the SW what little smoke and order I generate doesn't even register on the scale. What is that smell said the tourist to the Texan "MONEY" says he.


I always got a kick out of that expression. If they aren't your cows, that isn't money you're smelling. It's just cow s**t.[smilie=1: