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As a machinist and building maintenance engineer, I can almost guarantee any ill feeling you're experiencing after a trip to your local gym is due to the air qu
by nimbius 9y ago
As a machinist and building maintenance engineer, I can almost guarantee any ill feeling you're experiencing after a trip to your local gym is due to the air quality.
Gyms are rarely purpose built facilities. Rather, theyre rented and renovated spaces. In turn, airflow in the structure is planned for light industrial or office space. Almost no thought goes into the fact that gyms are sometimes hundreds of occupants moving the air at two to three times what the OSHA or planning documents indicate. Paints with VoC's, sealants, and even offgassing plastics from gym mats or new equipment can turn the air quality from decent to garbage in a few hours.
I was once contracted to fix an air handler issue at a fitness center. The root cause was a set of 6 un-ventilated panini presses that were placed near the front desk as part of an effort to sell snacks and sandwiches. The added smoke and particulate had decreased the filter life and burned out a blower motor. The solution was either get rid of the electric grills, or start replacing 30 day filters every week.
- awakeasleep 9y agoYou’re not even mentioning CO2 concentration. I work in a large, open office with seemingly sufficient airflow, but after buying a CO2 detector on a whim I’ve seen that it frequently reaches 1200ppm, and you actually can tell that you feel like crap when that happens. I can’t imagine if the whole office was filled with people exercising.
- wjnc 9y agoOur office has those installed as a regular feature in all meeting rooms. Main takeaway lesson: never fit more people in a room than was designed for. Air quality is a balance of inflow (equals outflow) and usage. Fit 9 in a room for 6? PPM way above 1000.
- mrfusion 9y agoWhat does it feel like as it starts getting higher?
- DoofusOfDeath 9y agoI don't know, but I'd love to see some study on the impact of CO2 levels on the measures we typical care about regarding meetings: levels of alertness, qualities of social interaction, decision-making speed/quality, etc.
- graeme 9y agoHarvard published an interesting one a few years ago. Having trouble tracking down the link on mobile, but here's an overview: https://thinkprogress.org/exclusive-elevated-co2-levels-directly-affect-human-cognition-new-harvard-study-shows-2748e7378941/ https://thinkprogress.org/exclusive-elevated-co2-levels-dire...
- neuronexmachina 9y agoHere's the study link: https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/15-10037/ https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/15-10037/ > Associations of Cognitive Function Scores with Carbon Dioxide, Ventilation, and Volatile Organic Compound Exposures in Office Workers: A Controlled Exposure Study of Green and Conventional Office Environments > ... Methods: Twenty-four participants spent 6 full work days (0900–1700 hours) in an environmentally controlled office space, blinded to test conditions. On different days, they were exposed to IEQ conditions representative of Conventional [high concentrations of volatile organic compounds (VOCs)] and Green (low concentrations of VOCs) office buildings in the United States. Additional conditions simulated a Green building with a high outdoor air ventilation rate (labeled Green+) and artificially elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) levels independent of ventilation. > Results: On average, cognitive scores were 61% higher on the Green building day and 101% higher on the two Green+ building days than on the Conventional building day (p < 0.0001). VOCs and CO2 were independently associated with cognitive scores. > Conclusions: Cognitive function scores were significantly better under Green+ building conditions than in the Conventional building conditions for all nine functional domains. These findings have wide-ranging implications because this study was designed to reflect conditions that are commonly encountered every day in many indoor environments.
- r00fus 9y ago
- agumonkey 9y agoThe market for green gym is strong
- neonate 9y agoSorry for being off topic but I want to get one of these. Which one should I get?
- sitkack 9y agoIt turns out measuring CO2 is expensive, but measuring VOC (volatile organic compounds, ethanol) exhaled by humans is cheap and one can map from the VOC PPM to equivalent CO2, in the datasheet referred to as CO2-equiv. https://www.mouser.com/datasheet/2/682/Sensirion_Gas_Sensors_SGP30_Datasheet_EN-1148053.pdf https://www.mouser.com/datasheet/2/682/Sensirion_Gas_Sensors...
- coastal-fiesta 9y agoDo you have a link to a CO2 detector that you recommend?
- whitepoplar 9y agothis one is best: https://www.amazon.com/CO2Meter-AZ-0004-Temperature-Relative-Humidity/dp/B001PDGFR8 https://www.amazon.com/CO2Meter-AZ-0004-Temperature-Relative...
- blacksmith_tb 9y agoI haven't tried either, but the parent has a +/- 50ppm margin, and this one[1] is +/- 5... 1: http://a.co/afxamMd http://a.co/afxamMd
- ugh123 9y agoProbably what he meant by "sometimes hundreds of occupants"
- dominotw 9y agoNot sure what I can do with this information. I live in a crowded city and this is the only place I can get a workout.
- graeme 9y agoDepends on the exercises you do. An outdoor gym is feasible depending on climate, air pollution, and what's available in parks. (Or simply cycling/jogging outside) Home gyms can cover part of it. You can do a lot with a chinup bar, bodyweight exercises, powerblock dumbell sets. I'm actually in a city too cold to go without a gym year round, and I do barbells so I can't do those at home (space too small). But, mentioning the options above for those who don't have the same constraints.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- stronglikedan 9y agoStart sharing it with your fellow gym members and collectively demand that management make some changes to improve air quality. Crowdsource some testing devices to prove your point if necessary, now that you have an idea of which points you have to prove.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- confounded 9y agoIt’s the thinking person’s altitude training!
- ehnto 9y agoOff-gassing toxins for long lasting training benefits free of charge! Feel the burn!
- ehnto 9y ago
- the_cat_kittles 9y agoi have a pet fascination with air quality- not in any real sense, but im always just wondering about it, since its so varied and virtually invisible. are there any simple small tools you know of that are good at get information about air quality. the only thing i see people sometimes use is a particulate meter that tells them the concentration of particulate matter of various sizes. seems like it would be cool to have a kit of different tools to measure things like c02 levels, voc's, particulates etc
- fossuser 9y agoI have one of these that I bought mostly on a whim because I was curious about it. https://getawair.com https://getawair.com It does a decent job.
- graeme 9y agoYou can get CO2 meters quite easily on amazon. They sell them as a commodity for greenhouses measurement. For particulates, the Laseregg is the best I've found. Apparently the laseregg 2+ measures VOC, but I'm not sure about that. From what I heard there are no VOC meters available at a consumer level. CO2 is the best proxy, because high CO2 means low ventilation, which prevents venting of VOCs.
- tkahnoski 9y agoWhat do you do with the air measurements? Are there things you can do to improve air quality?
- graeme 9y agoI changed a few things as a result: * I am far more diligent about opening a window at my home and office. In winter I may open one a crack. * I leave my bedroom door open at night * I noticed I was getting extremely high AQI index readings when cooking. I was frying things in a pan after previously cooking something else in the same meal (meat, then sweet potatoes). I now wash in between, use coconut oil (less AQI readings) and am more diligent about opening the kitchen door if the AQU gets high It's kind of like measuring weight. Once you have it stable, you don't really need to do anything. But, keeping the readings alerts you if something ever goes off track. Also very useful to see that even openings in windows could make large and immediate differences.
- amelius 9y ago> I can almost guarantee any ill feeling you're experiencing after a trip to your local gym is due to the air quality. That wouldn't make much sense: what if you feel ill only after doing certain exercises (e.g. cardio versus weight lifting)?
- dingbat 9y agomight be slightly off-topic, but what are your thoughts on those air purifiers that people can get for their office/home?
- amvalo 9y agoThis is the kind of information I can only find on HN :)