What kind of furnace needs this high level of air purity to operate? I would have thought a grating that prevents rats and squirrels from wandering in would suffice. I would assume small particulates would just burn with the rest of the fuel with no ill effects.
Build a do-it-yourself home air purifier for about $25
221–230 of 355 posts
Re: Build a do-it-yourself home air purifier for about $25
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dehumidifiers are expensive in power consumption, I don't know which model is more effectively. I'm living in SEA, and get humidity level to 50% 24/7 in my studio equally to double my monthly electricity bill.
I don't know if these are effective, but in my country we have passive dehumidifiers which are basically containers with a load of salt or something like that which draws the moisture out of the air. Good enough to keep caravans in storage mold free. Probably not good enough for e.g. living rooms or actually moist locations, but maybe it scales up. Of course, you'd then need a lot of salt or whatever the stuff is.
I used the passive variant that you explained in my previous apartment and while it may be effective at keeping humidity down, it's not very effective in bringing a high humidity down. I got an electric dehumidifier and it's drastically more efficient. It pulls over two liters of water per day out of the air if the air is sufficiently humid. I've since moved, so I don't use it routinely anymore, but I still have it and occasionally use it to speed up the drying of clothes on a drying rack.
Re: Build a do-it-yourself home air purifier for about $25
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
> “The general go-to clean room/industrial filter stack is Prefilter(F5 Bag)->HEPA->Activated Carbon.” yup, i bought a blueair 211+ ( https://www.blueair.com/us/blue/blue-pure-211/1695.html ), that has exactly those filter elements in a nice (if bigger than expected) package. this model was recommended by both consumer reports and the wirecutter (until recently, cynically thinking they didn’t pay wirecutter’s “endors…
I just bought the same model. What makes it so effective is that it has a filter on four large sides so it can process a large volume of air very quickly.
Does it spew out ozone? My memory may be off but I remember this model not meeting CA air purifier standards which was why Amazon couldn’t ship it to me
Re: Build a do-it-yourself home air purifier for about $25
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
The CDC has some recommendations on it (yes you can have mold tested to see if it's dangerous): https://www.cdc.gov/mold/stachy.htm I'm not really sure about keeping the humidity below 50% though. The UK and most of Northern Europe has rather high humidity in the winter. It commonly reaches 80-90 RH outside, so you'd have to heat your house to 25c/77F to bring the humidity below 50%.
Northern Europe gets really cold, so while RH may be high, it’s not moist at all. People get dry skin in the winter.
Northern Scandinavia and west of Urals (I live here) have moist winters (70+% RH most of the time). Skin would dry anyway because water evaporation rate is proportional to a pressure (hence temperature) difference and convection makes a constant supply of fresh unsaturated air.
Re: Build a do-it-yourself home air purifier for about $25
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
Woah, this is pretty scary. Thank you for sharing. How did you know it was mold that was in the air? Is there some sort of test kit that you can buy to test for this. Mold is pretty hard to detect because you can't really see it because it typically hides between the walls. Any advice appreciated.
I know there is mould in my house. We do three things to deal with it: 1. Air Filter (more for pollution but it helps with mould) 2. Dehumidifier which we leave on 24/7 basically for the mould. This is the big one. 3. Wash any mould with vinegar to change the PH after it is wiped off to prevent it from growing back. The mould is still there but the dry air stops it from growing and sporing which is what makes you sti…
A house should be able to dehumidify on it's own by natural air flow. Maybe it's different in more humid areas?
Re: Build a do-it-yourself home air purifier for about $25
#226Can we talk about Molekule? Their team and some SF tech community folks have been plugging it all over Twitter during this tragic wildfire crisis. But it seems like snake oil to me. It’s $800. Certainly for smoke particles it can’t possibly offer any more protection than a standard HEPA filter. But even for its claimed ability to nuke VOCs, the claim seems ridiculous. While particles can deterioriate under prolonged…
I had one. It has multiple issues:
1. CADR is really low to the point where the unit is near useless due to #2
2. In addition to a low CADR, it has the highest noise. It looks and sounds like a jet engine when you have this thing on high, which is needed due to the low CADR. This is the loudest air purifier that I’ve ever owned
3. If you get a defective main filter, the unit will emit an unpleasant metallic smell. I haven’t tested the particles yet but I doubt the air is clean.
4. Unlike other smart air cleaners in the same price range, it’s app and smart features don’t work. You can’t even create a schedule for it
It’s a very flawed device
Re: Build a do-it-yourself home air purifier for about $25
#227mine brother too working in construction business and having same breathing problem.
Re: Build a do-it-yourself home air purifier for about $25
#228I see some comments on fighting mold and smells, I have an experience devising my own protocol that was extremely successfull in my case. Few years back I was desperate to find a large apartment in an area where they are just not available. I found one, extremely cheap, that the owner could not find anybody to rent to. The apartment was all but destroyed by previous occupants -- there was substantial mold in most roo…
Hydrogen peroxide decomposes to water and oxygen, not hydrogen.
Re: Build a do-it-yourself home air purifier for about $25
#229I see some comments on fighting mold and smells, I have an experience devising my own protocol that was extremely successfull in my case. Few years back I was desperate to find a large apartment in an area where they are just not available. I found one, extremely cheap, that the owner could not find anybody to rent to. The apartment was all but destroyed by previous occupants -- there was substantial mold in most roo…
Hydrogen peroxide decomposes to water and oxygen, not hydrogen.
Ah, you are of course correct. Still, it will burst your bottle the same way hydrogen would.
Re: Build a do-it-yourself home air purifier for about $25
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
In order to take care of mold, you need to clean up what you can using hydrogen peroxide. It will foam up when it contacts mold. Keep applying until this is no foam up. Incidentally, peroxide in a spray bottle is great for cleaning showers and places that get mildew. Always use fresh peroxide. For an air purifier, you need one with a UV light.
Or a cleaning solution with chloride.
I've heard that vinegar is better for mould, as it leaves the surface rather more "acidy" than aseptic, as chloride does.