US with worse physical activity... I think this is car culture taking its toll. So many spend so much time in their car, and forget that you're really just sitting down. This means that in order to get the most value out of a car, you have to sit more. More hours on the road, less hours moving around. I'm not prescribing anything for anyone... it's fine if people want to spend most of their day in their car, I'm just saying some people are looking like their body has been molded by a car seat, and can't walk for a few blocks without getting tired.
The health benefits of better air
121–130 of 471 posts
Re: The health benefits of better air
#122EVs reduce tailpipe exhaust near roads but it's worth noting that brake abrasion dust isn't going away anytime soon and it's considered very bad to breathe, possibly in the same league as diesel emission particles.[1] I guess regenerative braking on an EV reduces this somewhat. Tire dust is also concerning.[2] [1] https://academic.oup.com/metallomics/article/12/3/371/595624... [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2264…
EVs drastically reduce brake dust.
Re: The health benefits of better air
#123Thank you for this extensive resource on air quality. Yes, it needs to get more attention as it is one of the main drivers of mortality of environmental risks. One thing one has to bear in mind is that often when you optmize your home for low PM (e.g. with air purifiers and fixing of air leackage) your CO2 will get very high causing headaches and reduce cognitive performance. So it always makes sense for indoor air q…
In practice, how does one try to achieve a balance between CO2 and PM? Do you open the windows for a while when CO2 is up and PM is down, and then close them and run your purifiers when CO2 starts to go back down? Is it possible to keep both low with HEPA filters on the windows?
I keep my HEPA filters on with the windows always open.
If the air quality is decent outside, it is easy to maintain a PM2.5 rating of near In California fire season I have a box fan on high in the window pushing air in (and sealing the areas around the window) through an MPR 2800 furnace filter (which is better than the 99.97% rated hepa filters, would be marked as a ULPA filter I believe in different contexts) with this I can maintain the ~0 PM2.5 rating inside even when the AQI outside is >300 while keeping CO2 in check.
It's been quite surprising how easily the CO2 spikes with closed windows and doors in the bedroom with just one person... I essentially always have a window in each room open several inches, cracked isn't enough, usually with at least one fan pushing air through a window.
Re: The health benefits of better air
#124Thank you for this extensive resource on air quality. Yes, it needs to get more attention as it is one of the main drivers of mortality of environmental risks. One thing one has to bear in mind is that often when you optmize your home for low PM (e.g. with air purifiers and fixing of air leackage) your CO2 will get very high causing headaches and reduce cognitive performance. So it always makes sense for indoor air q…
I am interested. Do you ship to Canada (happy to pay the difference/wait for you to figure out the postage rate)?
Yes, we will ship worldwide. Please send me a message from our website and the number of PCBs you would like to get and I will check the postage.
Re: The health benefits of better air
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
How should someone contact you? I looked into setting up something on an Arduino last year, and the CO2 sensor I ended up purchasing was not very good, so it's cool to see someone thinking about this problem domain.
FWIW I've been pretty happy with Senseair S8 0053 for my DIY stations. They're relatively expensive though. Not affiliated in any way.
Yes the Senseair S8 is very good. Only problem is that the automatic baseline calibration sometimes needs 7-10 days to kick in. But you can also do a manual calibration.
Re: The health benefits of better air
#126Lately I start to wonder if the symptoms of covid-19 are worse in areas with high air polution. India is an example but in parts of the Netherlands where we have the worst air quality in Europe, we also see this. It's hard to tell. But having a respiratory disease in an area of bad air quality won't help you.
Interesting, there could be a correlation.
At the same time early in the pandemic I remember reading that being a smoker had a moderate impact in reducing COVID symptoms severity.
Re: The health benefits of better air
#127Thank you for this extensive resource on air quality. Yes, it needs to get more attention as it is one of the main drivers of mortality of environmental risks. One thing one has to bear in mind is that often when you optmize your home for low PM (e.g. with air purifiers and fixing of air leackage) your CO2 will get very high causing headaches and reduce cognitive performance. So it always makes sense for indoor air q…
I am extremely interested. Willing to pay you the cost of the PCBs too.
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Re: The health benefits of better air
#128Thank you for this extensive resource on air quality. Yes, it needs to get more attention as it is one of the main drivers of mortality of environmental risks. One thing one has to bear in mind is that often when you optmize your home for low PM (e.g. with air purifiers and fixing of air leackage) your CO2 will get very high causing headaches and reduce cognitive performance. So it always makes sense for indoor air q…
I have an AirVisual Pro, which is quite expensive, but my half finished air quality monitor project had been on the bench for much too long. I have windows open all the time, air conditioning on too often, and dehumidifiers and HEPA filters as well. It is not efficient or particularly environmentally friendly... but I want a CO2 level My next half baked idea is figuring out a way to have a sealed home and an applianc…
Bubbling air through quicklime slush is an easy way of removing CO2. You can turn the calcium carbonate that forms back into quicklime by applying heat.
But it's probably better if you invested into a counterflow heat exchanger for ventilating your home. You can recover a large part of the heating/cooling energy.
Re: The health benefits of better air
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
In practice, how does one try to achieve a balance between CO2 and PM? Do you open the windows for a while when CO2 is up and PM is down, and then close them and run your purifiers when CO2 starts to go back down? Is it possible to keep both low with HEPA filters on the windows?
The best case solution would be a passive house with MVHR (Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery) and incoming air filtration. This means your home has a steady flow of fresh, low-CO2 air that is filtered for pollen and other particles (depending on the air filter chosen).
Another solution is to install a positive pressure system with high performance HEPA filters. This is especially recommended if you live in areas with very high air pollution.
Positive pressure systems can virtually achieve zero AQI inside even on the worst polluted days. You can read more here: [1] https://www.airgradient.com/blog/2020/01/08/positive-pressur... [2] https://seetheair.wordpress.com/2021/04/26/thailand-school-s...
Re: The health benefits of better air
#130This article seems to make fantastic jumps from the believable -- mortality from overall air pollution (e.g. in Delhi) to the frankly unbelievable -- your ultrasonic humidifier supposedly reducing your life by nearly an hour each night, or that a daily commute between Newark and NYC takes half a year off your life.
According to this logic, anyone who works in the subway should be dying, what, 10 years earlier? Which is obviously not happening.
Similarly, it seems impossible to believe that the minerals in the air from humidifiers are equivalently dangerous to factory pollution or cigarette smoke. Different categories of particles are going to affect the body differently, no? I mean, our body requires minerals -- we're drinking them in our water all day long -- while certain factories may be belching out straight-up poison.
These statistics are just not passing the smell test. They seem to be extrapolations of extrapolations of extrapolations. This article's conclusions don't seem even remotely convincing.