Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The health benefits of better air

dynomight.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 471 posts

Re: The health benefits of better air

#191

Post by colechristensen »

staticassertion wrote: post #183
freddie_mercury wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately this myth, which I also once believed, has been debunked. You just need waaaay too many plants to actually have an effect. The tests the myth were based on all assumed a closed system, which just isn't realistic. From one randomly googled article on the myth of house plants cleaning the air: "To remove toxins, you would need at least 10 plants per square foot."

To remove how many "toxins" exactly? Like, let's say I actually have a shitload of plants, like my ceiling is just lined with peace lilies. Presumably there is some % of something being removed, I'd be curious to hear what that is.

Well "toxins" is ill defined.

But CO2... to simplify imagine being a vegetarian, how much plant matter would you eat in a day? How much plant matter grew in one day in your houseplants? The only way plants are going to fix carbon is by adding it to their own mass. Just think about a conservation of carbon atoms. There's no way any plants in your apartment are going to make a dent in the carbon cycle of your personal environment.

There are arguments to be made for lots of things sticking to or getting sucked into the leaves of plants... maybe if there were a whole lot of plants a meaningful amount of VOCs or other pollutants could be removed... maybe.

Re: The health benefits of better air

#192

Post by AppleCandy »

Laundry and clothes by far creates the most dust and particles in my home, probably yours too.

At night, with the lights off and the room dark, turn on your phone LED pointed at the ceiling. Look closely at the air just above the light, you'll see tiny little material threads and speckles. I do not like the idea of constantly breathing that in.

I've used an expensive HEPA air filter in my room and did some testing, lo and behold: when I checked the air with my phone LED it was absolutely teeming with material particulates (probably cotton, which I mostly wear).

The air filter creates a circulation in the room disturbing dormant dust and kicking it up into the air, but the filter doesn't seem to catch and contain this dust.

Alternatively, when I left my room window open without any filter and allow fresh outside air in, the phone LED test later reveals almost pristine air quality probably a 100x decrease in particulates.

I'm now trying out a water-based air scrubber, one that looks like a fish bowl. It agitates the water, non-ultrasonically, just using rotation, and sends air through the wash. Doesn't seem to be more effective than just letting fresh air in through the window though.

Re: The health benefits of better air

#193

Post by colechristensen »

elcritch wrote: post #174
colechristensen wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh I'm not interested in hermetically sealing my apartment, there are no worries of normally constructed buildings being able to withstand a meaningful difference in oxygen pressure between inside and outside. CO2 pressure though can easily be increased by a large factor (5x is easy) and maintained with humans inside and closed doors and windows. PM2.5 is easy to maintain with HEPA filters. CO2 is not easy to maintai…

I’m intrigued by the idea of chemically scrubbing co2 at home as well. Hepa filters are easier to use than I’d expected. The next big step is co2 reduction.

Maybe get in touch

Re: The health benefits of better air

#194

Post by 5Zio »

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this in-depth article. As we're working on air quality at Airica, it's great to see that this topic is getting more attention lately. We focus on easy to deploy air quality monitoring for schools and offices. In these spaces it's just as much about CO2 as PM as high CO2 levels reduce cognitive performance significantly. This 2016 study shows 61-101% better cognitive scores in well ventilated buildings: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4892924/

Re: The health benefits of better air

#195

Post by colechristensen »

fomine3 wrote: post #184
colechristensen wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before the industrial revolution the CO2 levels outside were around 250ppm or at least less than 300. Current levels outside as measured by my device just now are about 450ppm.

My measurement is also about 450ppm and it's fine for me. How do you discovered lower level is better for you?

I don't know for sure, but there are certain things I notice which I think may have been improved when I started keeping track of CO2 and keeping my windows open. (I don't spend most of my time outside and I certainly don't sleep outside; outside levels might be 450 but inside levels even with my mitigations are usually around 700)

Like so many things I think it is a small effect; it's not like I can go anywhere for a week to experience 300ppm air.

I haven't gone to the levels of designing experiments and data tracking on myself. The fact that I've lived with allergies and a broken nose most of my life probably hasn't helped my personal respiration characteristics.

Re: The health benefits of better air

#196

Post by markasoftware »

ahaucnx wrote: post #9

Thank 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 see the aliexpress link to the PM sensor doesn't work (at least not in the US); where else do you recommend buying one?

Re: The health benefits of better air

#197

Post by scotty79 »

colechristensen wrote: post #108
ahaucnx wrote: post #9

Thank 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…

That's weird. I can easily get CO2 levels way below 800 with windows closed, just not completely sealed.

And then air purifier can keep PM2.5 levels below 10 on the lowest setting while outside is above 30

Re: The health benefits of better air

#198

Post by tolmasky »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #158
crazygringo wrote: post #130

This 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…

Extinguish candles with a lid. If you are worrying about the method by which you extinguish a candle, worrying is what's going to shorten your life, not the candle.

I don’t think it’s generating anxiety, just creating a habit. Like washing your hands with soap after you go to the bathroom. Once upon a time that sentence might generate the response “if you’re worrying about how you wash your hands, then the worrying is what’s going to kill you!” (in actuality it was worse, the suggestion that a surgeon should wash his hands before surgery was considered offensive). But today it’s pretty automatic, not some laborious mental checklist. And if you’re in a situation without soap, generally you don’t freak out, you do your best with just water and move on.

Re: The health benefits of better air

#200

Post by OBFUSCATED »

ahaucnx wrote: post #9

Thank 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…

just fyi, the contact us for details button is not working for me.

4(index):14 Uncaught ReferenceError: zE is not defined at openWidget ((index):14) at HTMLDivElement.onclick ((index):308)

Post reply on HN