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Permeable materials in homes act as sponges for harmful chemicals: study

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Re: Permeable materials in homes act as sponges for harmful chemicals: study

#71

Post by Night_Thastus »

Etheryte wrote: post #8
crazygringo wrote: post #3

The more we study it, the more we learn how harmful the air inside our homes is. That's why fresh air is key. Crack a window or two open. Buy an air monitor that monitors CO2 (good proxy for overall freshness), VOCs (sometimes these build up much faster than CO2), and PM2.5. If CO2 or VOCs are high, open windows more. If PM2.5 is high and coming from outdoors, turn on an air filter. Yes, this means your heating and c…

This is advice that gets thrown around a lot, but it's missing the important bit of how to buy a meter that's both reasonably accurate and affordable. There are countless articles online showing how widely commonly sold meters vary in their readings. What's more, paying more often does not mean you'll get a more accurate reading. Sure, there's diminish returns and past a certain point it doesn't matter, but many mete…

The problem is there are a lot of effectively 'fake' CO2 monitors. They can't monitor CO2, they only monitor something else and work backwards to estimate CO2 levels.

The cheapest real ones I've found are on the order of ~$150

Re: Permeable materials in homes act as sponges for harmful chemicals: study

#72

Post by mitjam »

driverdan wrote: post #67
mitjam wrote: post #18

We have a basement garage in our house which has probably not seen a car since the 80s. It still smells of gasoline.

Concrete absorbs petroleum spills. You may need to identify areas that are stained and do a thorough cleaning to try to extract as much as possible.

Yeah, also: The walls are covered with vapor-permeable lime plaster. the idea is to let a contractor specialized in this knock it all off. I have heard that there‘s probably lead in there from leaded gasoline, could be bad for health.

Re: Permeable materials in homes act as sponges for harmful chemicals: study

#73

Post by prewett »

nobodyandproud wrote: post #37
crazygringo wrote: post #3

The more we study it, the more we learn how harmful the air inside our homes is. That's why fresh air is key. Crack a window or two open. Buy an air monitor that monitors CO2 (good proxy for overall freshness), VOCs (sometimes these build up much faster than CO2), and PM2.5. If CO2 or VOCs are high, open windows more. If PM2.5 is high and coming from outdoors, turn on an air filter. Yes, this means your heating and c…

Good advice on the CO2 monitor. Cheap and surprisingly effective. I haven't considered the VOC--any recommendations? As an aside, I open up my window, but sometimes smokers decide to take a break outside and...well. Other times, I have neighbors barbecuing. If I don't shut the windows quickly I've just replaced stale and somewhat harmful air with oxygenated and definitely harmful air.

I've been happy with the AirGradient One, which does have VOC measurement, as well as CO2, and PPM 2.5. It seems that VOC on the hardware side is relative, so the amount is just compared to a baseline (last 24 hours in the case of the AirGradient One). Also, VOCs are everywhere, but not necessarily harmful: cooking will spike your VOCs, but that's very different than having a can of varnish open.

Re: Permeable materials in homes act as sponges for harmful chemicals: study

#75

Post by entropie »

crazygringo wrote: post #62
Etheryte wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is advice that gets thrown around a lot, but it's missing the important bit of how to buy a meter that's both reasonably accurate and affordable. There are countless articles online showing how widely commonly sold meters vary in their readings. What's more, paying more often does not mean you'll get a more accurate reading. Sure, there's diminish returns and past a certain point it doesn't matter, but many mete…

The Awair Element is the best option for consumers who want something easy and relatively inexpensive. Hackers may prefer other options.

Awair is awesome and very sensitive but pretty expensive (150€ for mine) but integrates well in HA

Re: Permeable materials in homes act as sponges for harmful chemicals: study

#76

Post by modeless »

crazygringo wrote: post #3

The more we study it, the more we learn how harmful the air inside our homes is. That's why fresh air is key. Crack a window or two open. Buy an air monitor that monitors CO2 (good proxy for overall freshness), VOCs (sometimes these build up much faster than CO2), and PM2.5. If CO2 or VOCs are high, open windows more. If PM2.5 is high and coming from outdoors, turn on an air filter. Yes, this means your heating and c…

Every home should have a heat recovery ventilation system. It gives you fresh outside air in the whole home, but filtered to remove PM2.5 and without the inefficiency.

Re: Permeable materials in homes act as sponges for harmful chemicals: study

#77

Post by buckle8017 »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #71
Etheryte wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is advice that gets thrown around a lot, but it's missing the important bit of how to buy a meter that's both reasonably accurate and affordable. There are countless articles online showing how widely commonly sold meters vary in their readings. What's more, paying more often does not mean you'll get a more accurate reading. Sure, there's diminish returns and past a certain point it doesn't matter, but many mete…

The problem is there are a lot of effectively 'fake' CO2 monitors. They can't monitor CO2, they only monitor something else and work backwards to estimate CO2 levels. The cheapest real ones I've found are on the order of ~$150

Unless your CO2 monitor has purge gas to calibrate it's going to underestimate indoor CO2.

They all assume that they will be exposed to atmospheric concentrations of CO2 at least once a week.

Re: Permeable materials in homes act as sponges for harmful chemicals: study

#78

Post by cryptonector »

modeless wrote: post #76
crazygringo wrote: post #3

The more we study it, the more we learn how harmful the air inside our homes is. That's why fresh air is key. Crack a window or two open. Buy an air monitor that monitors CO2 (good proxy for overall freshness), VOCs (sometimes these build up much faster than CO2), and PM2.5. If CO2 or VOCs are high, open windows more. If PM2.5 is high and coming from outdoors, turn on an air filter. Yes, this means your heating and c…

Every home should have a heat recovery ventilation system. It gives you fresh outside air in the whole home, but filtered to remove PM2.5 and without the inefficiency.

Can you say more? Maybe link to a useful page or product(s)?

Re: Permeable materials in homes act as sponges for harmful chemicals: study

#79

Post by hxorr »

This is why your plastic ketchup bottle still smells like ketchup after washing it multiple times - at a microscopic level, plastics essentially look like uncooked ramen/instant noodles, basically a big tangle of polymer chains which act like a sponge.

Now, consider what happens when you wash that plastic with a cocktail of chemicals in your dishwasher...

Obviously very hard/dense plastics (melamine comes to mind) are less prone to this

Re: Permeable materials in homes act as sponges for harmful chemicals: study

#80

Post by throawayonthe »

cryptonector wrote: post #78
modeless wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every home should have a heat recovery ventilation system. It gives you fresh outside air in the whole home, but filtered to remove PM2.5 and without the inefficiency.

Can you say more? Maybe link to a useful page or product(s)?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_recovery_ventilation
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