Three Weeks' Smoke

[kevin_standlee]

On July 24, I installed air filters on the box fans that I have to use to keep air moving into (and sometimes out of) the house to try and cool it off overnight. Yesterday, after a brief brake in the smoke, I took the opportunity to replace them with new filters. The photos below are of the new and old filters, which should give you an idea of just how much gunk has been in the air these past three weeks.



This is the inside face of the filters (i.e. the side of the filter that faces the input of the fan). This is a lot more buildup than what you would ordinarily expect from only three weeks' use of one of these filters.



It is of course even worse on the outside face, which is where most of the dust and smoke gets trapped. This is pretty awful.

I'm glad I started putting these filters on the fans, and as I've said before, also glad that my CPAP machine is triple-filtered. I look at these pictures and envision all of that dust and gunk getting into my lungs and I start to cough just thinking about it.

This afternoon is slightly clearer, with the AQI at a mere 80 (moderate), but nearby detectors are showing 160 (unhealthy) and the National Weather Service projects that the conditions could get very bad tonight, possibly going up into the 400 (hazardous; take cover now) range.

Comments

Yikes

[ravan]

That's what my 'poor man's air purifier" looked like the days that we had orange sky.

[delosharriman]

If frequent & prolonged episodes of high-solids-content air are to be Just The Way Things Are Now™, it would be hard for me not to fixate on the idea of installing an air plant based on the flue-gas treatment plant at a coal-fired power station — cyclone separator, followed by an electrostatic precipitator, followed by a water spray. Of course, to make it really economical, you'd probably have to convince your neighbours to go in on it with you, which is if anything perhaps more pie-in-the-sky than my usual ideas.

[scott_sanford]

I'm sure such things are standard off-the-shelf gear for some applications but I don't know where the economical break-even might be. Rather far above the needs of a single family dwelling, I suspect!