Surviving Climate Change: Fire and air purifiers
Breathe deeply and get smart about indoor air quality
Ok climate change is here? Can we agree on that? Climate change has resulted in increasingly volatile weather and seemingly more record-breaking events than a summer Olympics. The next few posts deal with adapting to some of these realities.
Key actions summary on maintaining indoor air quality
Why this matters: Protect your lungs indoors when fires bring unhealthy, smoky air
Maintenance must dos:
N95 your home by paying close attention to your windows and doors.
Change air filters to HEPA grade and replace at least annually.
Invest in an air purifier before fire season because prices go up and they sell out
If you already own air purifiers remember to have an extra filters in place.
Smart Maintenance should & could dos:
Invest in at least one smart purifier: Which means it can read and monitor AQI (air quality index), have automated triggers, and can be controlled remotely (wifi enabled). → Recommend: Dyson Pure Cool Link.
Consider smart smart smoke and carbon monoxide detectors: If you have the budget to install them in all necessary places - they also allow remote monitoring, can easily be turned off remotely in case of false alarms, and give advance notice to change batteries (vs the low chirp). → Recommend: Nest Protect
Ok some background...
Like many people on the West Coast, I'm still traumatized by last year's fire season—which burned 4% of CA. If you didn't believe in climate change before, the image of burnt orange skies likely changed some minds.
So in preparation for an all but inevitable yearly hellscape, here are some actions on how to protect your lungs from literal falling ash (as seen on the West Coast or now even NYC!) and the purple air.
Maintenance must dos
Action: N95 your home starting with your doors and windows
In most home maintenance guides it's important to seal all air leaks in your home starting by looking at all your windows and doors. This is not only great when you’re heating up your home in winter or using AC in summer but also important when outdoor air quality becomes bad. I won’t go too much into detail but there are a number of products that can be short term fixes if you do have air “leaks”. Here is a handy list of best practices from Energy.gov
Action: Make sure your HVAC air filters are HEPA grade and replaced at least annually.
Your HVAC system has likely multiple air filter that are replaceable. The general recommendation is to replace filters annually. If you use your heater and A/C regularly and air quality has been bad, replace filters more regularly after high use. When possible, always use a use HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) filters that can trap smoke particles. Unfortunately, most A/Cs do not use HEPA filters since air flow is too high. If anyone has advice on smart A/Cs that also act as effective air purifiers that would be amazing.
Safety tip: I recently changed the filters in my home to these from 3M with a MERV 14 rating. The grill on the filters was super sharp and left my finger with a deep cut. I would highly recommend wearing gloves when handling these.
Action: Invest in an air purifier now and get extra filters
Last year - as the air got progressively worse and on top of that having a newborn, I searched frantically to get an additional air purifier for the nursery. I used my favorite product review website NYTimes Wirecutter and found that most of the models they were promoting were already sold out but still managed to get one of their “Also Great” pics from Walmart.com.
The only issue is that most of their picks at the time did not actually have readers so even if they were great - there’s no way of knowing how effective they were. On top of that getting an air quality reader is fairly expensive (starting at roughly $80). Which brings me to the next recommendation.
See NYTimes Wirecutter Air Purifiers 2021 recommendations
Smart maintenance should dos
Action: Invest in at least one smart purifier
Recommend: Dyson Pure Cool Link.
Since I find comfort in data and ease of use, I ended up investing in an option that could read the AQI and deliver stats straight to an app on my phone. At the time this led me to purchase the Dyson Pure Cool Link which comes with a pretty well designed app. Not only that, it can be controlled remotely, turned on automatically, and can self diagnose (e.g. let you know when its filter needs to be replaced). While more expensive the expectation is that we can use this for many years especially if unhealthy air becomes a recurring issue which it has been. Also having this device helps us understand if other air purifiers without readers are working.
There are a number of purifiers that are not as nicely designed as Dyson but still can read the air and has an app - e.g. LEVOIT
Action: Consider smart smart smoke and carbon monoxide detectors
I put this in the “could do” bucket of things because the price of installing these devices in every required place is definitely a large investment. With only counterfactual claims - its really hard to asses how much more effective they are than having the analog version. Nevertheless, if you have the budget to install them in all necessary places - they also allow remote monitoring, can easily be turned off remotely in case of false alarms, and give advance notice to change batteries (vs the annoying low chirp).
Recommend: Nest Protect
Safety Tip: Remember in many states (inc CA where we live) the building code requires that Carbon Monoxide alarms must be installed outside each separate sleeping area in the immediate vicinity of the bedroom(s), and on every level of home, including basements.
Bonus action: Crowdsource air quality monitoring
I was also tempted to get a Purple Air Sensor both indoor and outdoor to help crowdsource air quality in my neighborhood but enough of my neighbors have beat me to the punch. These sensors are essentially what power more precise air quality readings today and are what powers many of the air quality maps (e.g. SF Chronicle Air Quality Map) .
Side Note: Our smart maintenance tips will focus on how new technology can actually fix problems AND simplify your life. So to the extent the tech can do a few things - help you actually measure, monitor, optimize, and eventually automate the task over time including self diagnosis mechanisms.
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Got any tips yourself? Let us know and here’s a link to a home maintenance plan template to help you track required actions.