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Forest Fires - Air Filters


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Forest Fires - Air Filters
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Matsu
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2023-06-09, 11:39

Hopefully any of you guys in Canada are not suffering directly from fires. We're safe from those, but have been feeling the air quality effect in the Toronto area big time. I read even New York State is feeling it

Two days ago I came home to a house that smelled like a wet camp fire, and quickly hit the local Home Despot to rig up a box fan/filter. I set the Ecobee to cycle the HVAC fan for a minimum 20 min/hour and lowered the A/C temp just to get more air flowing across the HVAC filter. I turned on the range hood and bathroom fans and by the time everyone went to bed, I had the house smelling much cleaner than outside.

This works, but my wife hates all the fan noise. I think we need a long term solution, especially with the lung damage that she's suffered.

Any recommends for a whole home system? Portable units seem good for a large room at best. Anybody here have any sort of whole home air purification plumbed into the HVAC/Airhandler/MAU? Our place has a conventional natural Gas furnace and a "high-efficiency" A/C. The supply plenum is empty - has a humidifier tacked on the side and feeds the furnace through a 4.5" filter.

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drewprops
Space Pirate
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2023-06-09, 12:06

Oh wow yeah, she was battered by Covid. Geez. This is crazy. I have no solutions, as our house is Saxon-era design - little more than a roundhouse.
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Ebby
Subdued and Medicated
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Over Yander
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2023-06-09, 12:57

As a Californian with smoke triggered asthma, there are 2 options we use. We have little single room filters (I added some cheap carbon filter from amazon) throughout the house which run 24/7 and are very quiet. The second option are high MERV (some companies use their own MERV equivalent rating) air filters for home AC systems and just fan cycle the air all the time.

The range hood may may do anything between nothing-at-all and making-things-worse. The filter is way too big to effectively capture smoke particles, and if it vents outside, any negative pressure will just draw in new smoky air through any gaps under doors or windows.

^^ One more quality post from the desk of Ebby. ^^
SSBA | SmockBogger | SporkNET
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turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2023-06-09, 12:57

Personally I would try just the high filtration filters and change them out monthly or so. I wouldn't use the exhaust fans much since that forces air from the outside in. I would actually limit using them at all if you can help it because of this. If it is blowing air from inside your house out, something will fill that vacuum and it will be outside air.

The box fan plus recirculating the central air handler is likely your best bet.

Years ago my mom worked for a heating and air company and she didn't have nice things to say about the whole home filtration units. She also hated the high filtration filters because they limit flow so much compared to super cheap mass particulate filters. Personally I use filters like these and they help with my allergies and such. They will filters smoke too, so should accomplish what you're after.

Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.”
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Matsu
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2023-06-09, 13:10

You're right about the exhausts, I just used them for an evening to clear the smell from the house. I think the high filtration filters are hard on the blower, but I do have access to the intake air and air return plenums downstairs. My HVAC guy thinks we may be able to increase the filter surface area so we can have a higher MERV without increasing the static pressure.

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psmith2.0
Mr. Vieira
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tennessee
 
2023-06-09, 13:52

I've been seeing this on the news, pics out of NYC and DC showing orange, hazy skies from the Canadian fires. Things, so far, look fine down here on the Tennessee/Georgia border, but I wonder if winds will carry that down here eventually? That's a long way. That time of year (we've had no rainfall here for over two weeks) and all it takes is one thoughtless idiot tossing a cig out of their car (or several thoughtless idiots shooting off fireworks or, worse, some MacGyver/Mythbusters wannabes rigging up some over-the-top "gender reveal" stunt involving pyrotechnics/sparks/flames so they can accidentally burn down half the county.

Morons gonna moron. National pastime.

I'm much more sensitive to smoke and irritants (including the human variety ) now than I ever used to be. Just being around cigarette smoke for 10-15 minutes will give me a 1-2 day ass-leveling headache. Neighbor burning leaves in the fall and the smoke blowing toward my place all weekend? Same thing. I figure I'll know the minute any of this stuff from up there arrives here. I just got over the worst springtime/seasonal head cold I've ever had in my life. Ugh...hoping not to flare up again. I've damn near sneezed/coughed my head off my neck already, don't need another round of it. I'm just now feeling good/normal today (and yesterday) for the first time in June. I can taste/smell food again, etc. I feel human once again. Stay away, Canada smoke!
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drewprops
Space Pirate
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2023-06-09, 14:40

A few nights ago I went outside around midnight for a minute and the smell of wood smoke hung heavy in the air. "Wow!" thought I, "it's all the way down here!"

So I hurried inside.

Then I realized that mom had said the neighbor had been burning stuff in the back yard earlier in the day.



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PB PM
Sneaky Punk
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Vancouver, BC
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2023-06-09, 14:47

We’ve had some smoke from local fires, started by pesky humans of course, nothing like what people back east are getting now. Province wide fire ban came in today! Today marks the first rainfall in 4 weeks, very unusual for this time of year!

We have had bad smoke before though, so I know what it’s like. N95s for outdoor activities, and we just use the central air system with good filters and it seems to work.
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psmith2.0
Mr. Vieira
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tennessee
 
2023-06-09, 15:40

I glance out my living room window often just to enjoy the view, but lately I’m keeping an eye open for orange/brown haze. That window faces south so I need to be looking more out my front door/second kitchen window on the opposite wall, facing north.
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Matsu
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2023-06-09, 16:02

Quote:
Originally Posted by turtle View Post
The box fan plus recirculating the central air handler is likely your best bet.

Years ago my mom worked for a heating and air company and she didn't have nice things to say about the whole home filtration units. She also hated the high filtration filters because they limit flow so much compared to super cheap mass particulate filters. Personally I use filters like these and they help with my allergies and such. They will filters smoke too, so should accomplish what you're after.
The home came with one of those electrostatic air filters - but it never seemed to work - so took out the cells and replaced with 16x25x4.5" pleated. I've since read that the electrostatic thingies can significantly increase ozone if not well implemented (which I'm sure this wasn't) so no going back to that.

The previous owner knew just enough to make a mess of the furnace blower speed settings (among other things) and when I had it serviced and cleaned the first tech recommended nothing more than MERV8 so there wouldn't be too much static pressure on the system, but I think this may have been conservative. 4-5" thick pleated filter should have more surface area - less susceptible to clogging. plenty of systems here use 1" which is also fine, you just change more often, which you can do, because they're cheaper...

My immediate inspection says: I can open open up the basement return duct quite a bit, it's clearly undersized at 4x10", there are two returns on the main and three on the second floor, and all are at least twice the size, there's only one in the basement, and it's the smallest. No one balanced anything properly in the 80's, and codes were inadequate, I'm confident the blower could use 20-30% more air just comparing changes in building codes over the years.

There's also enough room between the intake plenum and the blower for an even thicker filter, something like extended media filters or a larger filter sled altogether. Though a larger sled would fit, 20x25x5" seems the largest filter size to easily source locally and is available in MERV16, though maybe anything more than MERV13 is asking for trouble?

EDIT: TLDR version. Short term: keep running DIY box fan air cleaner periodically, and replace HVAC filter to MERV 11 or 13 and just change more frequently.

Long term: increase supply air to blower and upsize filter sled to the largest that will fit. Install MERV 16.

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Kickaha
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2023-06-09, 17:08

Hi, PNW resident here, 'fire season' is now in the standard mix for our year, in addition to 'mildew season' and 'second false spring'. Lessons learned:

- Do *NOT* run an exhaust fan, it will absolutely pull air in from outside. The Corsi-Rosenthal filter fans, however, are a huge help for indoor air quality, since they recirculate in-place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corsi–Rosenthal_Box

- Do *NOT* slap a 20x20 filter on the back of a box fan and call it good, you will burn out the motor, and I know two people who have started fires in their homes this way when the motor melted down. Build the Corsi-Rosenthal boxes, or buy a fan made for the purpose (Lasko caught on and now sells a beefed up 20x20 box fan with a MERV 10 filter on the back: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B089P1Z38J/ The $60 is about what you'd spend on a standard box fan, and 4 filters, with the possible bonus that it may chew through filters more slowly... just ordered one to compare to the C-R design, will let you know.)

- If you do have to head out, wear a mask. N95 is... okay, but really, you need a particulate mask for this crap. (If you have a stack of (K)N95s on hand, and don't head out for extended periods, they're fine.) 3M makes some good ones that work exceedingly well for painting, sheetrock work, etc if you're of a bent to do so:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008MCUT86/
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007JZ1N00/

Wildfire smoke is just horribly irritating to lungs and eyes. Keep it out of your house if you can, it's a good time to look into sealing all those cracks and such that normally fly under the radar.
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drewprops
Space Pirate
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2023-06-09, 19:52

Kick this is genius in its simplicity.

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Kickaha
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2023-06-10, 00:04

We’ve had practice. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Ryan
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Promise Land of Trustafarians
 
2023-06-10, 10:47

As someone living in the mountain west, I second everything Kick said.

Also, Coway makes some HEPA air purifier units that are pretty quiet. Mine is running right now on low and you can't hear it at all.

This particulate will stick to your hair, so make sure to wash it daily if you aren't already. Clean your bedsheets too.
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Capella
Dark Cat of the Sith
 
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Rochester, NY
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2023-06-10, 21:40

I had to seek medical treatment for how the smoke hit up my asthma.

I have a number of those pics of how bad upstate was in its apocalyptic orange sky hellscape I can post later. I built a CR-box but the box fan I bought to do it with was deazd, and didn't get replaced till after the worst was gone.

"A blind, deaf, comatose, lobotomy patient could feel my anger!" - Darth Baras
twitter ; amateur photographer ; fanfiction writer ; roleplayer and worldbuilder
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Matsu
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2023-06-11, 10:03

Asthma can be a bit insidious. I’ve learned there’s a very good chance that my wife’s COVID reaction was compounded by undiagnosed asthma. Being in pretty good shape pre-COVID meant it was likely never diagnosed. So now I’m going to add some significant air scrubbing to the home, both central and a couple of standalone units for the bedroom and main space.
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