Air Pollution in Our Homes

Post by londons_explore » Fri, May 10, 2019, 6:42 AM UTC

nextos wrote: post #56

martey wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/03/indoor-p... Recently, Waring and his colleagues reanalyzed all 195 studies that have examined whether houseplants can filter the air. They found that some types of plants can remove higher amounts of VOCs than others. But once you factor in the effects of working in a large room, none of the plants are able to do much. Waring told me to imagine a small office,…

That is spot on. The only solution is to build houses with better materials that release less VOCs and/or use an air filter with a good activated carbon stage. Carpets have become very popular. But cheap ones release tons of VOCs due to fire retardants and anti-stain treatments. I've switched to a house built in the Scandinavian style, with oiled wooden floors and simple soap-treated furniture. Not only beautiful, bu…

Post by londons_explore » Fri, May 10, 2019, 6:53 AM UTC

sizzle wrote: post #105

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.

Post by salex89 » Sat, May 11, 2019, 8:06 PM UTC

jly wrote: post #125

salex89 wrote: post #89

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The meter is this one: https://www.amazon.com/Air-Pollution-Formaldehyde-Detector-T... After these words I'm seriously starting to doubt the correctness of the device. I can't believe I wasn't able to find any indoor location with a low enough concentration for below 0.1 ppm, or only outdoors. I mean, these are rooms where I, my colleagues, friends and family are non-stop, we should all be good as one by now with tho…

Looking at the link, this device measures formaldehyde in mg/m3. You'll need to convert this to ppm, just FYI. 1 ppm in air = 1.24 mg/m3 @ 25° C If you're measuring 0.1 on the meter, that's about 0.08ppm (still pretty high).

Post by swampthinker » Thu, May 16, 2019, 4:33 PM UTC

lxmorj wrote: post #136

swampthinker wrote: post #115

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Building envelopes need to be tighter

Got a Netatmo CO2 sensor recently and i think that needs to be rethought. That shit builds up fast inside a well sealed system.