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  for Metal Finishing since 1989
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Toxic fumes from fiberglassing?

2005

I work in a chicken factory where they were putting a new spiral freezer in. During the work they were putting fibreglass around the freezer to keep it colder, but we were still working near it. It then let ouf this smell my lips went numb my chest felt heavy and the room was spinning. I felt like I was stoned I felt really weird I had a awful taste in my mouth all day with a thumping headache.
could you just let me know if this is bad for my health.
thank you trish.

Patricia
poultry - Australia

You are asking if something that made your lips numb, your chest heavy, the room spin, and made you feel stoned, and smelled & tasted awful, and left you with a thumbing headache is bad for you? Of course it's bad for you! You should not have been smelling those fumes, at least to any great degree; it seems that proper provision was not made for ventilation.

On the other hand, it's also possible to suffer such symptoms for no reason except expecting that you will; the placebo effect works in both directions. When a girl fainted at a junior high school assembly in my area a few years ago, 18 of her classmates were so phobic that they assumed that she had been felled by toxic fumes, and they all had to be hospitalized for their symptoms despite the fact that there was nothing whatsoever in the air.

Just make sure that management knows that the method was highly unsatisfactory and a repeat performance is not tolerable.

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
2005

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2005

Hi Patricia,

I am assuming that it is NOT fibreglass fumes you are breathing because you are talking about insulation...so the fumes would be the binder that that particular supplier is using to hold the fibres somewhat together.

Maybe different suppliers use different 'binders'. but I haven't the slightest clue WHAT they are .... but pop into a local store selling fibreglass insulation and see if they, too, have a similar smell.

The smell of curing resins, ie. fibreglass {frp} resins, would be ENTIRELY different ... and not nice if you are not used to them.... acetone ⇦this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] Warning! highly Flammable! being one of the ingredients along with, I believe, methylethylketonebenzoylperoxide

I don't have any answers to your query but different people often have different reactions to odours. Just ask your boss, if that smell still irritates you, to locate you somewhere else .... but that odour will diminish in time. Cheer up.

Freeman Newton [deceased]
(It is our sad duty to advise that Freeman passed away
April 21, 2012. R.I.P. old friend).