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Air Pollution in Our Homes

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Re: Air Pollution in Our Homes

#101

Post by beenBoutIT »

nextos wrote: post #95
lotsofpulp wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The limiting factor is they cost a lot more than most people can afford.

If you shop around, there are some really affordable options. IKEA has a whole range of raw solid pine furniture (without stain) that is incredibly cheap. E.g. an Ingo dining table costs ~$50. Last time I checked, it was manufactured in Poland, and it's pretty awesome quality for the price.

On top of that IKEA often has several of the best ranked air filtering plants from NASA's study available at great prices.

Re: Air Pollution in Our Homes

#102

Post by twistiti »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #22
downtide wrote: post #17

I always wonder about small acrylic hairs and such that float about the house. In a bright room just flex your jumper, there's thousands of these weird impurities, and I can't imagine they can be filtered out easily before or after getting into the lungs. The biggest shocker is when you disturb loft insulation. They claim it's not terrible (specifically if undisturbed), but floating glass strands can't be all that ni…

Fiberglas is listed in the US anyway as a carcinogen.

Interesting that fiberglass fibers are typically 5-25 micrometers (µm), while asbestos fibers can be 180A to 300A (1 angstrom = 1/10000th of a micrometer. So an asbestos fiber is between ~200 to 1400 times smaller than a glass fiber.

Acrylic fibers are 15 µm to 25 µm. Merino wool fibers are 15 µm to 30 µm. And human hairs diameters are between 20 to 200 µm.

Seems to be a biological limit to the body cleaning system e.g. nanoparticles, abestos

Re: Air Pollution in Our Homes

#103

Post by closeparen »

surfmike wrote: post #13

I got a air quality monitor when we had the California wildfires, and I was shocked to learn that my air quality was worse indoors when cooking than outdoors during the wildfires. (I am now in the process of getting a properly vented range hood instead of the dinky recirculating one we have).

Anything you can smell is technically air pollution, no?

Re: Air Pollution in Our Homes

#104

Post by hcurtiss »

I've been exposed to air toxics risk assessments through my work. The problem, in my mind, is not the toxics we're facing in our homes (or even outdoors). It's that humans are really bad at understanding risk. Let's imagine an annual Thanksgiving dinner presents an excess lifetime cancer risk of 2 (made up number -- probably much lower). Many people would find that unacceptable. But why? Many activities we engage in every day present much more material risk. For instance, this article says the odds of dying in a car crash are approximately 10.7 per 100k. That is 10,000 in a million. Yet we gladly get behind the wheel every day.

Noncancer effects are gauged in terms of multiples of the lowest observed effect level or the no observed effect level. If across a spectrum of exposures, we observed no effect at a certain level, that would be our NOEL. Of course, the observed effect could be a runny nose. 100x the NOEL could still be a runny nose (it could, in fact, be no adverse effect at all), but people see 100x the benchmark level and freak out.

In my mind, we really need to reshape this discussion around toxics. People are willing to suffer great costs to avoid hazards that do not, in fact, present material risks.

[1] https://www.cars.com/articles/are-the-odds-ever-in-your-favo...

Re: Air Pollution in Our Homes

#105

Post by sizzle »

pdog wrote: post #42

If you're concerned about indoor pollution, I highly recommend house plants. In NASA research[1], common house plants were found to remove toxic agents such as benzene and formaldehyde from the air. Some of the best air purifying plants: Chlorophytum comosum (spider plant), Dracaena reflexa (song of India), Nephrolepis exaltata (Boston fern), Sansevieria trifasciata (snake plant), and Chamaedorea seifrizii (bamboo pa…

Is there any sensor/device on the market capable of detecting carcinogenic VOC at a reasonable price?

If not is there a market opportunity to create such a product, maybe integrated into home HVAC systems that can sample circulating air with a mobile app dashboard for monitoring levels?

I've always worried that everything in my house is off-gassing and slowly affecting my health and lifespan negatively.

Re: Air Pollution in Our Homes

#108

Post by soulofmischief »

pdog wrote: post #42

If you're concerned about indoor pollution, I highly recommend house plants. In NASA research[1], common house plants were found to remove toxic agents such as benzene and formaldehyde from the air. Some of the best air purifying plants: Chlorophytum comosum (spider plant), Dracaena reflexa (song of India), Nephrolepis exaltata (Boston fern), Sansevieria trifasciata (snake plant), and Chamaedorea seifrizii (bamboo pa…

The "conclusions" people draw from that study have been disproven again and again. The study did nothing to prove that a few specimens of certain kinds of house plants are enough to replace an air filter or change.

Re: Air Pollution in Our Homes

#109

Post by mirkules »

jly wrote: post #81
jspash wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm now curious enough to want to get one of the meters. The reason being that everyone at work swears by the new wave of "mattress to your door" mattresses that you can buy online. Buy I insisted on getting a "real" mattress filled made of cotton, wood and springs. I'm still looked at like a caveman because I didn't go for the extruded oil hipster mattress and would like to be vindicated by evidence from an impartia…

I was also curious, as an owner of a box mattress and laminate flooring. I used https://acsbadge.com/ to do a highly-accurate one time test of my home and was happy with the results. Piece of mind to determine if you have a potential issue or not. They also give guidance on how to interpret the numbers and what 'safe' means (results are in ppm concentration accurate to 0.002 ppm).

That’s interesting, but they have 133 badges. Which one did you use?

Re: Air Pollution in Our Homes

#110

Post by soulofmischief »

tomohawk wrote: post #91

If you want to reduce the pollution in your home, stop using dryer sheets, fabric softener, Downy, or any laundry detergent that is scented. Instead of fabric softener, use white vinegar as a liquid fabric softener in your washer. It will make your clothes smell fresh - not vinegary. That scent that comes off of clothes that are treated with scented detergents and softeners is air pollution.

Care to explain why? Or what mechanism specifically is contributing to pollution? Seems like "pollution" might need some defining, too.
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