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Need to Cover Up the Odor of Your Trail Bike? Here’s the High-Tech Way

By Trail Rider Magazine, January 2002 Issue, pages 22-23

I once bought a Penton vintage class bike. It was dirty and ratty, had been sitting in a barn forever, and it had this smell about it. It smelled like old, old gasoline turned to varnish and dried-out crusted old gear oil. I fixed the bike all up, got it all clean and pretty looking, but to the day I finally sold it you could still detect the smell. It never really went away.

At the time I was working out of an attached garage, and having anything that stinks was a definite negative. If you walked into the house through the garage door you’d carry that smell in with you, along with the unusual smells of fresh gas and new tires, all that stuff we like. Trouble is, the smells are nice in the garage, but in the house they’re bad news, especially if you have a spouse that’s not as tolerant as you are.

So how do you get rid of the smell? Well, you could detach the garage. Or maybe you couldn’t. You could bring in some kind of deodorant, which wouldn’t do more than cover up one bad odor with another one. And the combination of smells might be even worse.

I wanted to find some kind of high tech way to kill the smell, and it turns out there are simple solutions to the problem, depending on how big your garage is. I went out and got and electric air cleaner and ionizer. The unit I got is called the Surround Air XJ-2000, and it’s rated to cover a room up to 500 square feet. It is silent; there are no fans or motors inside. All it does is sit there and generate ozone and negative ions, and it really cuts down on odors.

From what I understand, two things happen. When an ozone molecule meets a pollutant, the ozone is attracted to it and one of the oxygen atoms of the ozone breaks away and reacts with the pollutant, neutralizing it by oxidation and removing the odor. The negative ions drift out and attach to floating particles magnetically, making them too heavy to stay airborne and they fall to the ground. So the odors disappear and a fair amount of airborne microscopic particles are removed from the air.

It seems to work well, certainly much better than trying to cover up an odor with another smell. At certain times, you can overwhelm the system, say if you’re working on a carburetor and spill some gasoline. But if you follow the simple rules of garage cleanliness and don’t leave gasoline or oil lying around, you’re not going to be creating and overwhelming odor situation anyhow. The surround air will pick up the normal slack and you should be tracking a lot less of an odor situation into your house.

(You should of course, never store gasoline inside your garage. Aside from odors, it’s dangerous, flammable stuff, and you should store it in a separate shed or storage box outside the garage.)

We recommend it. The surround air sits on a shelf silently doing it’s job, and it only needs cleaning once a month or so, which is quick and easy. As a benefit, it comes with a 12v cord and cigarette lighter adapter, and you can use it in your car of truck if you like.

As and aside, we’ve got to mention that the Surround Air wasn’t made to kill odors from an industrial garage and it probably won’t work that great in a bigger space than a standard two-car garage. The company that makes the Surround Air manufactures even larger units for tackling bigger jobs, and you might want to check them out. Also, where the Surround Air really shines is in the living space of your house, especially if your suffer form allergies or asthma.

You can learn a lot more about it by checking out the details at www.surroundair.com, or call them at (801) 444-0606. The address is: Surround Air Division, Indoor Purification Systems, 1052 South Arbor Way, Layton Utah, 84041.

Surround Air Ionizer Study: 99.2% reduction in airborne particles from 3 feet away from the air ionizer.

This article has been syndicated from: http://www.surroundair.com/
Author: Trail Rider Magazine, January 2002 Issue, pages 22-23

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