Ozone machine

[Carl Meyer]

Howard, I once built several ozone generators for a friend of mine who used
them to remove smoke odors from fire damage.  I just copied a machine that
he had.  Mine was a bit more powerful.  I used an ignition transformer (used
for igniting furnaces)  If I remember it put out about 4 or 5 thousand
volts.  The voltage was applied across a sheet of mica sandwiched between
two pieces of stainless steel wire mesh.  The mica glowed with a blue flame
and a fan blew air over it and ozone came out the side.  Ozone, as I
understand it is an unstable, corrosive form of oxygen.  Air with plain old
oxygen will oxidize (rust, corrode, rot, deteriorate, burn etc)
Fire is nothing more than rapid oxidation.

My friend would put a small? unit in a room and then clean the room and
leave the unit in the room for  ? time.  For a hi rise office building that
had a fire on one floor that distributed the smoke through the whole
building through the ventilator system, he would use a jumbo generator and
distribute ozone through the whole building.

What worried me was that workers were cleaning the building at the same
time.  I don't know what level is harmful.  Here are some facts that I was
told.

Ozone is not toxic.
Ozone is odorless.  What you smell is the mucous membrane in your nasal
passages oxidizing (burning, if you will).  This has the potential to expose
your lungs to pneumonia.  Fire fighters are at risk due to the excess ozone
present at fires.  They are generally treated to prevent respiratory
infection.

I have no feel for the level that would be dangerous.  I would expect that
if you can smell your nose burning I'd be concerned.  In high
concentrations, yes, metal will rust.  Rust is metal disease, you know.
That's why I built the machines out of stainless.

I got a sore throat after purposefully smelling the output of the machine I
built before I realized the danger.

Be careful.  More is not always better.  Ozone will gobble up smoke odor as
well as other susceptible delicacies.

This info is not very definitive, but I hope it helps.

Carl Meyer  Assoc. PTG
Santa Clara, California
cmpiano@home.com







----- Original Message -----
From: "Howard F Jackson" <hjackson8@juno.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Monday, November 05, 2001 2:09 PM
Subject: Ozone machine


> Hello list:
> Has anyone out there had any experience removing smoke odors from pianos
> with an Ozone Machine that does something to the oxygen.
> Does it work and does it have any adverse effect on the piano?  I've got
> two grands and a studio that were in a building that had a fire.  They
> were closed and not in the room where the fire was.  After cleaning they
> still stink!
>
> Howard