Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: HOT projection booths

This is topic HOT projection booths in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=004794

Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 04-16-2003, 01:05 PM:

Does anyone here have to work in a projection booth that's lacking a/c or is just downright hot? I'm not talking just uncomfortable-because-we-want-to-save-money, I mean HOT, as in 85F+?

What effects does this have on the equipment or film? Are there any OSHA regulations regarding the temperature of a working environment?

=TMP=

Posted by Aaron Mehocic (Member # 15) on 04-16-2003, 01:31 PM:

I have worked in projection booths without a/c, and they are a bitch [Mad]

. Where I'm at the winters are cold, so the booth was nice in comparison to the rest of the building. Some ushers would come upstairs just to warm up. However, the summers were just plain murder. I've seen thermometers showing 90+ degrees. Obviously thats not good for the equipment and we advised the owners of this. One owner's wife suggested removing ceiling tiles since hot air rises [Roll Eyes]

. We now have a/c, but in my opinion it was two years too late.

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 04-16-2003, 01:41 PM:

One booth where I used to work full time, now only occasionally, is consistently over 100F half the year and over 85F the other half. The 100 degree difference between inside the booth and outside (to do the marquee) in the winter is good for a little chill.

Mind you air conditioned booths can be just as bad. Last summer the air conditioner in the booth I was working in full time went a little haywire for a couple weeks. The average temperature was 50F.

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 04-16-2003, 02:09 PM:

My booth is air conditioned here. The only time it heats up is when we run double-system shows. It's not that much compared to running some of those old carbon-arc booths in Los Angeles. A friend told me a story of this operator at this theatre in the valley area of Los Angeles. It was a old single screen Fox theatre, with the restrooms located upstairs. One staircase to the Mens and the booth. And the other to the ladies and the managers office and the extra booth exit. So one Hot day in the summer, this operator was working during the day shift. It was over 100 outside. During those days the operators of some theatres would strip down to their undershorts [Eek!]

, in some of those booths. No one would come into the booth, you had the doors bolted. So this operator opened the extra booth exit to see what kind of business it looked like downstair. (You could see [eyes]

the lobby from that spot)So he walks out and the door closes. [Eek!]

He had the wait to see the manager to let him back into the booth. I never found out what else happened or who it was from the local.

Posted by John Westlund (Member # 913) on 04-16-2003, 02:13 PM:

I have been working in our booth when the temp is over 100 degrees. WAY TOO HOT

Posted by Patrick McDonough (Member # 1363) on 04-16-2003, 02:31 PM:

We have a booth upstairs that can easilly hit 90-100 degrees in the summer

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 04-16-2003, 03:43 PM:

I worked a booth in the State Nut House (Northern State Hospital) many years ago. In the summertime, I know it got hotter than a firecracker.

I was always afraid to work there. I was afraid the "attendents" would mistake me as a patient. [Roll Eyes]

Another booth I worked in that the temperatures exceeded 100 degrees was the El Cine Mexacano in Burlington, WA. The owner and I tore down a wall to get some circulation in it. It was one of those iron boxes just big enough to house the machinery, a rewind bench, and a chair. I had to run that booth because I was the low man on the union's totem pole, and nobody else wanted to touch it.

Posted by Michael West (Member # 428) on 04-16-2003, 04:21 PM:

our 17 plex comprises of 3 seperate booths, one 10 a two and a 5 plex = 17! all booths have ac with varying degrees of unreliability so a booth can get really hot in the summer, (our cp500 sound processors i feel are affected by this as it can get very cold when we first start the day then it becomes very hot as the day goes on and this coupled with our high humidity affect the cards in our cp500 often causing the show to start or end without changing the sound in or out of intermission music) at least that is my theory, it happens almost every day.

Posted by William Leland III (Member # 1400) on 04-16-2003, 04:42 PM:

When your thermostat reads 72 it cold is cold up here, when it reads 73 it is hot. [Roll Eyes]

It might have something to do with our built in de-humidifier.

Never had any problems with equipment or film, except when the humidity drops low or high, which effects film

Posted by Ken Layton (Member # 133) on 04-16-2003, 04:43 PM:

The booth at the Skyline Drive-in theater (Shelton, Wash.) frequently is very hot! The booth faces directly into the hot sun most of the day and the booth has huge picture windows. With the building being made of cinder block, NO insulation, and being directly over the hamburger grill of the kitchen the booth normally runs 95 degrees. Sometimes it gets to 110 degrees!

Very early and very late in the season when it's still cold outside (like below 50 degrees F) the booth is actually comfortable with the booth temp at 75 degrees.

This heat is not good for the equipment that's for sure and with the picture windows a person has to watch how much clothing is taken off! [Eek!]

Posted by Bruce Hansen (Member # 281) on 04-16-2003, 04:43 PM:

If your booth gets much above 80 F you are asking for trouble with electronics. It may not happen right away, but you are shortining the life of anything electronic. Inside the equipment the temp. will be much higher than the surrounding air. The damage will compond over time. Always make sure you keep air vents on equipment clean, and unrestricted.

Posted by John T. Hendrickson, Jr (Member # 849) on 04-16-2003, 05:12 PM:

You haven't lived until you've worked one of the old drive-ins on a hot summer night, with those big old Ashcraft carbon arcs blazing away! Changeovers were a hoot- sit outside, dart in, strike up, make the changeover, throw the reel from the outgoing projector onto the rewind. Then thread and check the carbons. Take the rewound reel out and throw it in the film cabinet. Dart back outside to cool off.

Gordon Bachlund and John Pytlack can relate to that, I'm sure. [Smile]

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 04-16-2003, 05:23 PM:

I can relate to that John. It also usually includes darting back into the booth to avoid the mosquitos outside. Big open field and no breeze, go figure.

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 04-16-2003, 05:55 PM:

John, so can I. [Smile]

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 04-16-2003, 06:42 PM:

John, so can I... The Walake Drive-In...now long gone. [Frown]

Pass me another PiC. [Big Grin]

>>> Phil

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 04-16-2003, 06:54 PM:

Yup remember those days and in the late fall leaning up against the futuraII's to keep warm

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 04-17-2003, 08:33 AM:

In the really cold weather at the Grandview Drive-In, we'd sometimes leave the big lamphouse exhaust fan off for part of the show, to make the booth warmer. Only problem we recognized at the time was more lamphouse cleanup being needed. In hindsight, a foolish thing to do, especially regarding the potential health problems of breathing "rare earth elements" used to enhance the light output of carbons. [Eek!]

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 04-18-2003, 02:54 PM:

I imagine the heat problem was fairly universal in arc booths... especially drive-ins, since the exhausts for those things weren't much more than draft inducers. Even the little box-booths with the Strong Standards were sweat-boxes. I spent a long time in my earlier years trying to figure out why those things didn't even have fans, & what that wierd stack arrangement on the top was supposed to do! [Roll Eyes]

I've noticed that the cheap, expandable rigid ducting that seems popular in some booths seems to add to the heat problem (we've got plenty of it here). The stuff isn't insulated & the corrugated ridges seem to act like radiators. We've got lots of air flow & AC in our booth, but during the Summer the temp goes right up when the lamps are all going.