Cold spark dust

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sawdust123

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I saw on FB that some DJ posted that a wedding venue is claiming $12K worth of damage to their dance floor because the residue from a cold spark machine was ground into the surface of the floor by people dancing. I had never heard of this problem before but it makes sense.

Taso, you use these more than most. Have you had issues with venues or do you only use these on carpet?
 
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I saw on FB that some DJ posted that a wedding venue is claiming $12K worth of damage to their dance floor because the residue from a cold spark machine was ground into the surface of the floor by people dancing. I had never heard of this problem before but it makes sense.

Taso, you use these more than most. Have you had issues with venues or do you only use these on carpet?
That venue is just being petty, and from my best guess has never seen this effect before and didn't realize how it gets EVERYWHERE. The material is just dust... it can be vacuumed in minutes. In my area venues have this used almost daily... wood, marble, carpet, tile... name it, we've used it. Never seen it "engrained" into the floor to the point it can't be removed and never seen a venue go from allowing it to not allowing it. In fact, it is the opposite. Venues are pressured to allow it as it's an effect that is in so much demand, if you don't you'll lose out a good portion of potential clients, especially if they speak to a dj before the venue contract is finalized.

Now... there is one asterisk to all this. If the sparklers were put into effect before the boxes were up to temperature... then there is a chance that granule was still hot and created a burn mark on the floor (VERY Tiny black mark), but this would only apply to carpet, not any other material. This is where having the proper units with a monitoring system is vital. My controller tells me the temps of all my units, so that I only shoot them when they're ready... and not for too long, so that the blowers don't overheat either.
 
I should add one additional point. The tube that these shoot from, if not cleaned out properly at the end of the night (all of the units have a clean function which you run at the end to empty any residual granules from the shooting tube... you have to run this for 20-30 seconds typically), the granules can bunch up and either clog the line in a sense, or just as bad, melt/fuse together so that you're potentially shooting burning hot pieces of metal, which while it's not on fire, it is burning hot to the point that it can singe off a little piece of carpet when it drops to the ground. Again though, this is carpet.. not any other type of flooring. There are some venues that do require a rubber/vinyl runner underneath the sparklers to minimize the chance of this.
 
I used these at every event. Of course, mine is a concrete floor and not a fine finish but like Taso said, it's just dust and is swept up easily. The one thing I'd mention is, if you have them near the head table and you do First Dance before dinner, then the B&G are going to have dust spread over their food/drink. I always schedule First after dinner. Before sparks I usually did it right after GE.
 
That venue is just being petty, ...

$12k to restore the floor is hardly "petty."

The MSDS form is published specifically to verify what the spark powder is composed of and the hazards they present. It's not hard to predict the potential impact on various types of flooring.

Dance floors are not "petty" articles for consideration. I've been around enough stages and event spaces to see what floor damage looks like, how dangerous it can turn out to be for dancers and performers workin on it, and how expensive it might be to repair - especially those floors designed with a specific aesthetic finish.

Cold spark powders contain Titanium and Zirconium. The residue under the feet of a crowded dance floor can easily behave like fine sand paper. That's going to be a disaster on marble, vinyl, ceramic, or porcelain tile floors. It can also ruin the finsih on highly polished hardwoods. You can get by for a while as many people (especailly at a sweet 16) dance with their shoes removed, but eventually hard sole shoes and a vulnerable floor are going to pair up to form a nice orbital sander or to grind this powder deep into the pores of historic wooden floors.

Titanium can also burn when exposed to an open flame or high heat (candles.) Once ignited titanium cannot be extinguished by water, foam, or carbon dioxide extingushers. It requires a dry chemical fire extinguisher and you should have one on hand if using this material.
 
$12k to restore the floor is hardly "petty."

The MSDS form is published specifically to verify what the spark powder is composed of and the hazards they present. It's not hard to predict the potential impact on various types of flooring.

Dance floors are not "petty" articles for consideration. I've been around enough stages and event spaces to see what floor damage looks like, how dangerous it can turn out to be for dancers and performers workin on it, and how expensive it might be to repair - especially those floors designed with a specific aesthetic finish.

Cold spark powders contain Titanium and Zirconium. The residue under the feet of a crowded dance floor can easily behave like fine sand paper. That's going to be a disaster on marble, vinyl, ceramic, or porcelain tile floors. It can also ruin the finsih on highly polished hardwoods. You can get by for a while as many people (especailly at a sweet 16) dance with their shoes removed, but eventually hard sole shoes and a vulnerable floor are going to pair up to form a nice orbital sander or to grind this powder deep into the pores of historic wooden floors.

Titanium can also burn when exposed to an open flame or high heat (candles.) Once ignited titanium cannot be extinguished by water, foam, or carbon dioxide extingushers. It requires a dry chemical fire extinguisher and you should have one on hand if using this material.
I've yet to see any hardwood or polished floor get ruined by this. You'd think with all these high end venues around here, including one that charges $500 a plate now, that they would ban this if it ruined their high maintenance dark hardwood floors. The weddings that I do in Philly at the Crystal tea room is a historic building founded in 1911 have very old floors... not only do they have no issue with sparks, they've purchased their own for couples who hire bands or djs who don't offer it. I think I've used these more than anyone here, and being that I do 85% weddings, most of my guests have their shoes on lol.

Now... to be fair, there are different companies who create these granules, and maybe the knock off ones are very coarse granules, but the ones I have literally are dust upon falling to the ground.

Lastly, the granules actually don't ignite when up against a regular flame. At least not from demo videos such as this at the 6:15 mark:
View: https://youtu.be/tBACQzm-d2M?t=375
 
Upon further thinking, dancefloors get ruined by heels and other equipment on a regular basis, all before spark fountains were even a thing. Venues would have to refinish their floors as regular maintenance. I've never seen years worth of damage happen in a matter of hours from these granules. Even you said "eventually".

So maybe the better question to the OP is, is the venue claiming 12k worth of damage happened after one event... or that sparklers in general created damage over time, resulting in 12k worth of refinishing. Like I said, I just can't see how 2hrs of dancing would result in that sort of damage, and how one would be able to determine it was the granules vs just regular movement from people over time.
 
I've yet to see any hardwood or polished floor get ruined by this.

I don't expect you would.

The most striking thing to me, is that you're perfectly fine using effects that spew dust, confetti, condensation, or other artifacts within a facility without any provisions to clean up after yourself and then cite the burdened facilities as "petty."
 
Upon further thinking, dancefloors get ruined by heels and other equipment on a regular basis, all before spark fountains were even a thing. Venues would have to refinish their floors as regular maintenance. I've never seen years worth of damage happen in a matter of hours from these granules. Even you said "eventually".

It's not your property that's at risk and opinions about another businesses' maintenance or historic preservation costs is nither informed or useful..

"Refinishing" refers to solid and natural wooden floors and that is no longer the dominant commercial flooring material. Many materials must be wholly replaced and "spot refinishing" is no longer an option. Facilities that do have wooden floors may also be historically significant and require additional consideration.

Titanium in many forms can be harder than steel with far lower density. This makes it an ideal abrasive once it is ground into the soles of shoes. It's also retained and travels with those shoes, compounding the issue.
 
I don't expect you would.

The most striking thing to me, is that you're perfectly fine using effects that spew dust, confetti, condensation, or other artifacts within a facility without any provisions to clean up after yourself and then cite the burdened facilities as "petty."
Perhaps it's the way I interpreted the issue. I've never seen hardwood get destroyed by this, or any floor for that matter. Therefore I can't imagine this causing a $12,000 issue. So upon reading the original owners comments, I figured they were just being petty with all the dust that accumulated, not that there was actually damage to the floors. I'd still like to get additional info as to what the damage looks like, was it after one event, etc. Unless the dj dropped a pack of unused granules, I can't see how the used granules would cause any sort of physical damage.

I use these about 25-30x a year... and in Jersey these are used on a daily basis (I can't think of a venue that doesn't allow them in central and north jersey). You'd think if venues are having issues with this, someone would've spoken up.
 
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This is what I'm enjoying about having my own venue. No more being the bottom of the totem pole and having to just take everything that gets dished out at me. That said, I can see both sides of the issue. While I also can't see how that dust would cause any kind of damage, it is something that has to be cleaned up by the venue and I can see why they'd gripe about it. That said, in the scope of things that must be cleaned in a venue, making such a big deal (and especially trying to claim $12k worth of damage) is petty behavior. Perhaps Bob has a point that, if we're going to use sparks, maybe we should sweep up the area after we're done. It will cost them extra labor that they didn't really sign up for.
 
This is what I'm enjoying about having my own venue. No more being the bottom of the totem pole and having to just take everything that gets dished out at me. That said, I can see both sides of the issue. While I also can't see how that dust would cause any kind of damage, it is something that has to be cleaned up by the venue and I can see why they'd gripe about it. That said, in the scope of things that must be cleaned in a venue, making such a big deal (and especially trying to claim $12k worth of damage) is petty behavior. Perhaps Bob has a point that, if we're going to use sparks, maybe we should sweep up the area after we're done. It will cost them extra labor that they didn't really sign up for.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the floor going to be vaccumed in between and before an event. While confetti can't easily be picked up, and can clog vacuums (especially expensive industrial ones), the granules are picked up by most ordinary vacuums. When at a venue, we always clean up our used tape, water bottles, and regular garbage... but I've yet to see a venue ask for the dust to be picked up especially since they're vacuuming it up right after. Maybe in some smaller venues where they don't vacuum as often or don't vacuum at all and just handsweep it may be an issue, but the question is why aren't they cleaning regularly to begin with.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the floor going to be vaccumed in between and before an event. While confetti can't easily be picked up, and can clog vacuums (especially expensive industrial ones), the granules are picked up by most ordinary vacuums. When at a venue, we always clean up our used tape, water bottles, and regular garbage... but I've yet to see a venue ask for the dust to be picked up especially since they're vacuuming it up right after. Maybe in some smaller venues where they don't vacuum as often or don't vacuum at all and just handsweep it may be an issue, but the question is why aren't they cleaning regularly to begin with.

After an event, we pull the linens from the tables, then take a leaf blower and push everything towards the front door. The spark dust is easy to cleanup and the granules are just big enough that they don't go airborne. Once I get everything pushed up into a smaller area near the front door, I take a broom/dustpan and put it into a garbage can. At venues where they have carpet, I could see it being a bit of a PITA to cleanup after sparks and I'm not sure I wouldn't fuss about it if I were the manager there. I do still hold that the $12k damage claim is bologna. That spark dust is no more harmful to the floor than the dust/dirt that comes off guest shoes.
 
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After an event, we pull the linens from the tables, then take a leaf blower and push everything towards the front door.

A leaf blower is probably not the way to deal with this stuff if you value your own health.

SECTION 6: Wear appropriate respiratory and protective equipment specified in special protection section. Isolate spill area and provide ventilation. Vacuum up spill using a high efficiency particulate absolute (HEPA) air filter and place in a closed container for disposal. Take care not to raise dust.

SECTION 7: Operator is recommended to wear self-absorption filter dust masks, chemical safety glasses and chemical gloves. Workspace must be away from fire and heat sources. Always provide sufficient ventilation to maintain concentrations at or below TLV. Avoid producing dust. Avoid contact with acids. Store in a cool dry place in a tightly sealed container.

If the Material Safety Data Sheet emphasizes "dust" as something to be avoided - then there's a potential future suspect being accounted for in the warning. It's too early to know what unpredictable health affects the dust might present, so I would use a HEPA vaccuum not a leaf blower.

I use these about 25-30x a year... You'd think if venues are having issues with this, someone would've spoken up.

Apparently, someone just did.
I don't really care one way or the other. I just think it's interesting how dismissive DJs are about the care of other people's property, and despite all the defensiveness - still no one using these appears to have ever bothered to read the products MSDS form.

$12,000.00 is a serious charge and unlikely to be born from a "petty" concern.
 
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I personally have known DJs held accountable for property damage, Expensive tables, flooring, glass, stairs, and elevators. These are not petty complaints - they are real issues and venues DO hold vendors accountable. It's why you hold liability insurance - or is that too, just petty?

The first thing I do before setup is inspect the work area and access route. If there's already damage or an inherent risk I discuss that with the venue so we are in agreement before the work starts.

I also know of DJs who have been barred from working in certain venues. Don't make the mistake of thinking that a contract you made with a client means a venue has to allow you on the property - because it doesn't. People who fail to check their attitude at the door can easily find themselves locked outside. You're contract is performed for a client while you remain as a "guest" at the venue subject to their approval.
 
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Apparently, someone just did.
I don't really care one way or the other. I just think it's interesting how dismissive DJs are about the care of other people's property, and despite all the defensiveness - still no one using these appears to have ever bothered to read the products MSDS form.

$12,000.00 is a serious charge and unlikely to be born from a "petty" concern.
I'm not being dismissive, I'm still waiting from the OP to see if he can elaborate as to what type of damages we're referring to. He said ground into the surface. It doesn't sound like the hardwood was scratched up when I hear that. It may just mean they can't get it out (which then I ask do they just sweep, or do they vacuum. Here, many venues use $3000 wet vacuums on their wood floors before and after each event). Was it directly from one specific event, something that has happened over time as a result of allowing sparklers to be used, a burn mark, etc.

To break it down further...
- If it was a result of over time... then perhaps the venue is not effectively cleaning the remnants of this product, and as you said, is being abrasive over time being left on the floor, especially if it's just broom swept.

- If it's the result of one event... was it just the dust itself that they didn't like...and used it as an excuse to say we need to refinish all our floors... even though there was no literal damage. This is what my first thought was from firsthand experience, seeing that no damage has been done in the 100+ times I've used it.

- Perhaps it was a burn mark... that's a legitimate reason for concern. This means the dj isn't operating his units properly. Perhaps they're not being cleaned well at the end of each event and the material is clumping together and essentially a hot metal ball(s) hit the ground and caused burn marks. Or perhaps they're using the knock off ones where there isn't a temperature monitoring system and are shooting them prematurely, which can also have the same effect. The venues around here that require an underlayment around the units all have had that issue and because they have carpets, they have burn marks. A handful of venues here only allow units with the temperature monitors.

Lastly, I do have a pretty decent understanding of what you're referring to and have read the products MSDS form a number of times (although it's been a while). It is why I follow the proper protocols as best as possible when using them, invested in the units that have the monitoring systems (I originally had the knockoffs for a couple of months and didn't want to risk malfunctions when shooting) and have invested $1000 in the class D sodium chloride extinguisher which I bring to my events. But in addition to that, I do have quite a bit of first hand experience, which counts for something, and perhaps why I have a hard time understanding what damage occurred as a result of 1 dj using them at 1 event, especially when used properly. Rick, who also uses sparks, also assumed the complaint was simply dust related as that is petty much the only complaint I ever see venues make about them and how they get everywhere.

I've learned one thing though, different fire departments instill different views on these to their local venues/vendors. In New England the fire dept is VERY against this effect. In NJ and most PA counties, these are viewed very favorably and many venues have even invested in them (and follow virtually no protocols lol). In July, I did an event at a community center who never saw these. I told them it was safe and they won't have any issues with them setting off alarms or anything catching fire. To be safe they called the local fire marshal who also confirmed it is safe and they had nothing to worry about. Two different fire marshals, two different opinions.
 
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Taso, while I was the OP of this thread. This wasn't my incident. It was something shared by another DJ on FB that I brought here.
 
Taso, while I was the OP of this thread. This wasn't my incident. It was something shared by another DJ on FB that I brought here.
I understand, and sorry if it came off that way... I'm just asking, since I don't know what the post says, if there is any additional context or comments by the person that shared the thread. I'm sure that post gathered lots of comments by others and sometimes more info comes out as a result.
 
My thing would be simple. Take me to court for this and prove to a judge that the damage was caused by us and it warrants them getting paid 12k.