RYOBI 18 Volt portable Fogger
this was originally posted sept 2019. its been updated. One of the things I love is tools, I have a vast collection of tools from a full size metal lathe to my 3D printers. I use them all often to either design and build something cool or to fix up the house so get used to seeing some tool reviews on this blog, its not all about death cleanup. The latest tool I’d like to review is the RYOBI 18 Volt portable Fogger. I use a ton of Ryobi tools in my
FX shop as well as in
Exit Cleanup . They were one of the first to branch out from battery powered drills to a whole crazy line of tools all run on the same batteries.
When I used to work for others back in the day, I used to buy the best tools and had a set that would make most men leave their wives if it was a choice between them and the tools. I still have a lot of them but as I started hiring people in the FX studio I noticed that just about anything could and was often used as a hammer. I understand it because we always had crazy deadlines and lots of custom work to do so you grabbed what was close when you needed to give something a smack.
As these more expensive tools died, I replaced them with cheaper ones since we would buy and need several at a time, and of course they would be used like a draft horse in a quarry. I bought several Ryobi drills and screw guns, the old school blue ones and they lasted through the abuse of hundreds of projects. I still have them and they work fine. They outlasted all of my other more expensive drills. I then bought a couple other tools that were Ryobi because we already had the batteries and why change what worked. I found myself to exclusively buy Ryobi because they really seemed to keep adding to the tool line and well, we like battery operated tools on set and on locations. We don’t always have power where we go for films and sometimes you just need a tool you can use anywhere, and we certainly have. I’ve brought some of these things around the world and I still haven’t tossed one away. I have only added to them and I tell everyone about it and even give them as gifts. I have turned more people on to their tools than I can remember. I am the guy in home depot waiting to talk about them. Yeah and I don’t even work for them lol.
The newer lines of Ryobi tools are greenish yellow and have much better batteries than the first round so they just keep getting better. These 18 volt tools are strong enough to tear your arm off, in a good way. I have a huge assortment of these tools from the standard hammer drills and circular saws to the more exotic, 18 volt One Gallon Compressor and Automatic caulk gun. A tool with no cord just comes in handy.
So that brings me to the
18 volt Ryobi fogger . Since we started
Exit Biohazard and Crime Scene Cleanup we have invested in more tools of course. Some as duplicates for the trucks and some as something unique to the needs of the business. The fogger was something I bought for
death cleanup originally. Fog gets into everything and with the fogger I could spray
disinfectants and odorcides to help mitigate the odors cause by an
unattended death that’s been there a bit. We have other ULV (Ultra Low Volume) foggers and sprayers but as a Ryobi fan, I couldn’t ignore it so of course I was going to get it and try it out. It’s another tool in the arsenal and like most of their tools it was very inexpensive for how valuable is really is.
So, of course the first thing is that it’s 18 volt and cordless, that’s a no brainer when you need to go from room to room. It’s so much easier than a corded fogger but can it really do the job is always my first concern. No matter how cool it is, it has to perform. Once we got it unpacked and looked at the directions, it’s a pretty simple assembly and very easy to use. Fill it and pull the trigger and you get fog. Although I’d say it’s a cross between a fogger and a mister because the droplets are larger than the typical
professional foggers we use. I won’t get too much into the micron size because Ryobi doesn’t state that, but if I had to guess probably about 30 – 60 microns, so it’s a wet fog for sure. For those of you that don’t dwell over these specifics, I understand. As a comparison, human hair is about 0.004in diameter that equals 100 microns. When we look into foggers we look at volume and what size mist of fog we get in microns. The idea being that a fogger with smaller droplets uses less material and is a dryer fog overall which means that you won’t be leaving very wet surfaces. That is sometimes important for certain situations. You don’t want to soak a room and invite mold, nor do you want to not have enough material out there to do the job. Each situation calls for something different. In a room where someone has used a shotgun to kill themselves you will be cleaning many large areas that are contaminated by
blood, bone and brain matter and you want to go a bit heavy on disinfectant. A wet disinfectant or enzyme cleaner also helps in the softening of brain tissue which aids in cleanup, whereas disinfecting or
decontaminating an area due to a virus or bacteria you would want something dryer and more direct like an electrostatic fogger which the fog is attracted to surfaces and aids in covering areas with disinfectant without being too wet.
The Ryobi fogger falls into a
wet fog so it’s a great tool for many situations that we face but it’s not our only fogger of course. It’s a great tool in general and is perfect for indoor and outdoor uses. You do have to keep it level or else it will shoot out a stream of liquid but other than that it, the fogger is very easy to use. It’s got a great design made for one handed carrying, no cord needed and it pups out a lot of material fast so you can use it for everything from odorcides to pesticides, or disinfectants to biocides. It’s a very useful and impressive fogger. Like many of their products I find it’s another winner, hands down. And before you ask, no I don’t get paid by Ryobi lol, but I love their tools.
Update: we still use this in limited situations. We use bigger foggers in general and often electrostatic ones but its still a great tool in our arsenal.
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