I am in the beginning stages of my first extraction attempt (collecting supplies, reading teks, researching etc etc) and I have a general question about the fumes that are created during the process, specifically the odors in general.

I realize that every tek is different and there are different chemicals involved in the process but my question is this: Which specific chemicals should I be most concerned about emitting odoriferous fumes? The dangers of directly inhaling toxic fumes I understand, and will take the necessary precautions to avoid that, but the essence of the smell is what I'm curious about.

The main problem I foresee and that I am trying to avoid is neighbors catching a whiff of something strange and feeling unsafe or alarmed. I live on the second floor of an apartment complex. I currently have no tenant living directly below me but I have some across from me and just in general there are a lot of people around.

I will be using the following STB extraction that involves lye and naptha - https://www.dmt-nexus.me...aspx?g=posts&t=6619

I apologize if this has been asked before, I tried to search for it but could not find this question specifically. Any help is appreciated.

Thanks!

unless you intend to evaporate the naphtha normally not enough fumes escape to be noticed by anyone let alone alarm anyone. Even if someone does ask, you can always say it's paint thinner or something like that.

That being said I would still advise against working in closed rooms with naphtha as it is very volatile and the fumes will give you a headache if you breathe them in for too long. just try to minimize the time you have the lid off your jars. You want to save the solvent as much as you can anyway so you can reuse it as often as possible. so best not to lose too much to evaporation.

Gotcha gotcha. Thanks. I suppose I should be fine then. I'll just have a couple fans blowing and a window open while wearing the appropriate PPE.

I hadn't thought about evaporation loss before. I'll be sure to cap everything off when it's not in use.

Well, that's one more check on the list of things to do!