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Installing air filters in classrooms has large educational benefits?

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Re: Installing air filters in classrooms has large educational benefits?

#41

Post by dang »

bobcostas55 wrote: post #6

Andrew Gelman: "No, I don’t think that this study offers good evidence that installing air filters in classrooms has surprisingly large educational benefits." https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/01/09/no-i-dont-...

A thread on Gelman's article is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22006595.

Normally we'd merge these submissions but the topics are sufficiently different that I think that might add confusion. I've moved most of the comments from this subthread to that one, though.

All: if you want to comment on the Gelman article, please do so in the other thread, where your comment will feel more at home and get more attention.

Re: Installing air filters in classrooms has large educational benefits?

#42

Post by t34543 »

burfog wrote: post #20

At home it matters too. I recover faster from chest colds when I remember to keep the HEPA filter running. (instead of a simple speed knob, it boots up to a multilingual color display that I can't even dim, and of course the filter defaults to "off") Here is a common air quality problem. Anybody have ideas? My house is in a hot and humid area, so I run the air conditioning most of the year. The duct work appears to b…

You have duct board. It can’t be cleaned, only replaced. If you want to spend a lot look at double wall sheet metal ducts and never let your house sit without dehumidification.

Re: Installing air filters in classrooms has large educational benefits?

#43

Post by t34543 »

proee wrote: post #32
burfog wrote: post #20

At home it matters too. I recover faster from chest colds when I remember to keep the HEPA filter running. (instead of a simple speed knob, it boots up to a multilingual color display that I can't even dim, and of course the filter defaults to "off") Here is a common air quality problem. Anybody have ideas? My house is in a hot and humid area, so I run the air conditioning most of the year. The duct work appears to b…

Remove the material with mold from the space. Duct work is a terrible idea in humid climates. It's better to get those individual wall AC units per room. Mold is nasty stuff that will cause long term health problems.

Mini splits still need to be cleaned and evaporator coils collect mold/mildew/contaminates just the same.

Regardless of what you have periodic maintenance is what makes a difference.

Re: Installing air filters in classrooms has large educational benefits?

#44

Post by vkou »

derefr wrote: post #38
vkou wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And what should you do if your outside air has in it too much CO/methane/other small-molecule gas particles that HEPA filters have no hope of trapping? You pack up, and move somewhere that's not the equivalent of sitting in the middle of a crude oil refinery. Plants won't deal with these problems, either. > What do they do to recycle the air up at the International Space Station? For the most part, they chemically…

> You pack up, and move somewhere that's not the equivalent of sitting in the middle of a crude oil refinery. I would posit that for many people (e.g. citizens of China or India), "moving somewhere" where you're not constantly exposed to small-molecule pollutants would require more effort (e.g. acquiring a different citizenship) than would be required to atmospherically decouple your house.

You are vastly underestimating the difficulty of atmospherically decoupling your house, and of supplying oxygen/pulling out ammonia/CO2.

For that kind of money, you may as well just buy an investor visa.

Re: Installing air filters in classrooms has large educational benefits?

#45

Post by ehnto »

vkou wrote: post #44
derefr wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You pack up, and move somewhere that's not the equivalent of sitting in the middle of a crude oil refinery. I would posit that for many people (e.g. citizens of China or India), "moving somewhere" where you're not constantly exposed to small-molecule pollutants would require more effort (e.g. acquiring a different citizenship) than would be required to atmospherically decouple your house.

You are vastly underestimating the difficulty of atmospherically decoupling your house, and of supplying oxygen/pulling out ammonia/CO2. For that kind of money, you may as well just buy an investor visa.

Is there a middle ground? Can you clean at least make the air better than it would be otherwise?

Re: Installing air filters in classrooms has large educational benefits?

#46

Post by protomyth »

When we ran a daycare we were specifically told NOT to install air filters because there was research that suggested it would cause the children to develop problems and have a reduced resistance. I would guess for older kids it's fine, but you might want to consider that if you have or will have kids when talking about the home, or come up with some mitigation strategies.

Re: Installing air filters in classrooms has large educational benefits?

#48

Post by blaser-waffle »

sundvor wrote: post #13

Great article. It would be interesting if we could monitor productivity in the major Australian CBDs these days. A lot of the big office buildings don't have the capability to filter the unhealthy / toxic bushfire smoke, and the workers get to suffer. And on that, good luck trying to find any purifiers, anywhere in Australian stores.

For the yankees, that's Central Business District (CBD), not something marijuana related.

I'm in Canada and have had days of smoke from the Fort Mac fires roll through -- it's rough.

Re: Installing air filters in classrooms has large educational benefits?

#49

Post by vageli »

lkbm wrote: post #21
jschwartzi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've actually purchased a couple of indoor plants, a snake plant and a peace lily, to help generate oxygen indoors. I noticed the air "tasted" better about a week after I put them in the room. And I also noticed the air in my office feels better than the air in my apartment which has no plants. Whether that's something measurable I don't know, but while having these plants here I feel like I perform better.

https://www.gardenmyths.com/houseplants-increase-oxygen-leve... did some looking into this possibility. The TL;DR is that you're not likely to have enough plants to make a significant difference in terms of CO2/oxygen. Doesn't mean there's no positive effect, but it's probably not due to oxygen levels.

The sources in that link seem to suggest that the benefits come from removal of CO2 and volatile organic compounds from the environment, versus attributing the benefits to oxygen generation.

Re: Installing air filters in classrooms has large educational benefits?

#50

Post by vkou »

ehnto wrote: post #45
vkou wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are vastly underestimating the difficulty of atmospherically decoupling your house, and of supplying oxygen/pulling out ammonia/CO2. For that kind of money, you may as well just buy an investor visa.

Is there a middle ground? Can you clean at least make the air better than it would be otherwise?

There's not much of a middle ground between 'perfectly affordable consumer grade air filters that get most of the crap out of the air', and 'hermetically isolated, self-sustaining atmosphere'. HEPA filters work quite well at what they are designed to do, and it is generally cheaper to move someplace else, then to go over-board with improving your filtration.
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