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Literally Suffocating in Meeting Rooms, A Little
- strstr 7y agoThis reminded me of https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/08/23/carbon-dioxide-an-open-door-policy/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/08/23/carbon-dioxide-an-open.... After reading it I started leaving either a window or a door cracked, but honestly did not notice a difference.
- CaliforniaKarl 7y agoRevK (who runs a UK ISP) has been looking at this since March: https://www.revk.uk/2019/03/air-quality-and-co-levels.html https://www.revk.uk/2019/03/air-quality-and-co-levels.html https://www.revk.uk/2019/03/understanding-co2-air-quality-better.html https://www.revk.uk/2019/03/understanding-co2-air-quality-be... He’s very much an old-school Hacker; it’s worth reading the posts he’s made since those two.
- nothrabannosir 7y agoThe ISP appears to be “AAISP”, at https://www.aa.net.uk/ https://www.aa.net.uk/ , for anyone else in the market for a UK ISP soon.
- ahbyb 7y agoThe amount of CO2 in their offices is the first thing I look at when I'm picking a new ISP.
- nothrabannosir 7y agoAbsolutely, the last thing you want is your technogamekeeper suffering a suffocating malaise. :) That, and perhaps their street cred as O.G. Hacker. A distant second.
- slavik81 7y agoI suspect this may be why I'm so tired after meetings, but I'm not sure. It would be nice to test the air in the meeting room. There are dozens of different sensors on sale on Amazon, but if I buy one, how do I know if it's correct?
- t34543 7y agoYou could be tired after meetings just because they require a significant cognitive load.
- slavik81 7y agoThat was my initial assumption, but the air quality seems both plausible and fixable. Worth investigating.
- TheRealBill 7y agoTalk to remote people. ;) We get tired after/during the meetings, too, and we often have better air quality than those cramped meeting rooms.
- Viliam1234 7y agoSome people are more sensitive to this than others. For me, being in a badly ventilated room feels as if someone is trying to suffocate me with a pillow. Not being able to sit by the window and keep it open whenever I need it is yet another thing that I hate about open spaces.
- Animats 7y agoI got a CO2 meter out of curiosity. They are, indeed, about US$150. I get a little under 500ppm indoors. Incidentally, humans can tolerate much higher CO2 levels with accommodation, but, as with altitude, it takes days. The US Navy submarine people have done considerable work on this. So this is not a global warming issue. Real CO2 sensors are still about US$60 as a part. The standard sensor has a heating element, and uses about 75mA, so this isn't suitable for battery operation. 1mA sensors are now available, but for US$160 or so. This cost problem is holding back widespread use in HVAC systems. HVAC systems for rooms where the people load varies widely (classrooms, offices, hotel function rooms, restaurants) should have a CO2 sensor to tell how much outside air you should be pulling in. But outside of hotels, they're rare. Cheap "air quality sensors" measure volatile organics, which is something else entirely.
- joecool1029 7y agoFWIW I have had this cheap CO2meter for a few years and it seems to work just fine. https://www.co2meter.com/products/co2mini-co2-indoor-air-quality-monitor https://www.co2meter.com/products/co2mini-co2-indoor-air-qua... Windows open? Drops into 600ppm range. GF and I at home with closed windows and HVAC off, usually climbs into 1200pm range. Gas oven on? Easy to get over 3000ppm if there's no ventilation on. > But outside of hotels, they're rare. I haven't made it a point to look in all of them, but I've seen quite a few in microbreweries in the room they do their brewing. Not sure if required by law, but it's generally a good idea.
- thoughtstheseus 7y agoLarge industrial facilities often track air quality, usually in certain areas, to prevent accidents.
- 05 7y ago$20 on AliExpress. https://www.circuits.dk/testing-mh-z19-ndir-co2-sensor-module/ https://www.circuits.dk/testing-mh-z19-ndir-co2-sensor-modul...
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- lordnacho 7y agoI always suspected this. I recall several times in crowded lecture halls feeling drowsy and uncomfortable. My theory was co2 but I didn't know enough about how it works. Interesting to think though about the whole co2 thing, if we keep burning fossil fuels we won't be able to think properly anymore?
- rcthompson 7y agoI'm pretty sure we will notice the destructive effects of global warming long before we notice any cognitive decline from atmospheric CO2 levels.
- Booktrope 7y agoThe effect mentioned in this article is certainly not suffocation. 2000 ppm of CO2 is about 0.2% of the air, and doesn't signficantly reduce oxygen levels. It's a real problem, but calling it suffocation is pretty dumb. This is possibly even a more serious problem in tightly weatherized bedrooms. I was in a rehabbed house tightly weatherized by the contractor (to meet a typical building code). It had radiant heat. When my wife and I sat in the bedroom for 1 hour, a calibrated CO2 sensor showed levels rising to 1600 ppm. (Humans put out lots of CO2). Sleeping 6 - 8 hours in that environment is very likely to cause cognitive impairment the next day. So if you're in a "tight" house, make sure to sleep with the windows open! Raising the question of course, of why then tightly weatherize the house? Well, so we can say, we're being environmentally responsible, of course!
- tonyedgecombe 7y agoA heat exchanger will allow you to circulate the air without losing most of the heat.
- sharpneli 7y agohttps://www.osha.gov/dts/hib/hib_data/hib19960605.html https://www.osha.gov/dts/hib/hib_data/hib19960605.html 10% (100000 ppm) concentrations can cause unconsciousness or death even if you have enough oxygen. It is because we don’t only need to get oxygen from air but also to exhale CO2 as waste. And the higher CO2 partial pressure is the harder it is to get rid of it. Eventually killing us.
- orthoxerox 7y ago> So if you're in a "tight" house, make sure to sleep with the windows open! The right answer is to switch on your heat-recuperating ventilation.
- Abekkus 7y agoThe right answer is not to have such a tight house. Instead of spending resources to tighten it, then spending more resources to install a compensating appliance.
- croisillon 7y agoBut if the air is so much charged with CO2 we feel it and we end up opening the windows it seems? At least at my job meeting rooms windows are systematically opened between meetings.
- breakintheweb 7y agoA lot of office buildings in the us have the windows permanently closed so you can't open them.
- Broken_Hippo 7y agoA lot of office buildings in the US have no windows at all.
- matttproud 7y agoThis has been why I have enjoyed living and working in Europe (DE and CH): high-quality windows to be opened at a moment's notice at home or in the office.
- croisillon 7y agoI am in Austria, in a very modern building, and I believe every second window is blocked, I have never seen where all windows would be blocked.
- dangus 7y agoI agree, the small “people” in other continents don’t truly enjoy the atmosphere in the same way that we do, with the highest quality windows demonstrating the apex of European craftsmanship. Air just doesn’t feel the same when it’s being wafted through a lesser window in an inferior continent. I heard that other places don’t have toilets, opening windows, or even the opera!
- khrbrt 7y ago
- Sujan 7y agoOk, so which ones should I get? (Amazon.de preferred, but please throw in all links)
- flgr 7y agoThis one has worked really well for me and friends who are also using it: https://www.amazon.de/TFA-Dostmann-AirCO2ntrol-CO2-Monitor-Kunststoff/dp/B00TH3OW4Q/ https://www.amazon.de/TFA-Dostmann-AirCO2ntrol-CO2-Monitor-K...
- flgr 7y agoThere's also software to read the measurements it makesover USB, but I haven't personally used that: https://github.com/huhamhire/co2-monitor-exporter https://github.com/huhamhire/co2-monitor-exporter
- flgr 7y agoLooks like the underlying logic came from this blog series, which made me originally buy that particular device: https://hackaday.io/project/5301-reverse-engineering-a-low-cost-usb-co-monitor https://hackaday.io/project/5301-reverse-engineering-a-low-c... :)
- Sujan 7y agoThanks, ordered and will try it out.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- rcthompson 7y agoIn high school I remember being consistently very tired in certain classes. One of them was health class, which replaced phys. ed. for one quarter, meaning that an entire gymnasium worth of students was crammed into a classroom. Others such classes were internal classrooms with no outside walls, and hence no windows. I suspected CO2 was an issue at the time but obviously had no way to prove it.
- alexis_fr 7y agoReversely, I was surprised at how healthy (tall, notably, and a healthy skin) Australians are compared to France. I highly suspect that Australia has proper air ventilation in classrooms and we don’t in France. In France it is common, for a class, a meeting, and and even in a theater or music show, to cram people in a room, and not worry about ventilation. People complaining will be seen as weak. I wonder whether proper air venting through school increases the global IQ and total skills of students.
- paggle 7y agoIt’s also that Australians are the descendants of criminals who were shipped to a hostile land at minimal expense and managed to survive.
- Sharlin 7y agoThe idea of a windowless classroom sounds horrible. They’re definitely not permitted by building code around here.
- frutiger 7y agoEvery meeting room in our office building has a little meter in it which rotates through displaying three different measurements: temperature, relative humidity and CO2 ppm. Most of my colleagues are surprised when I point this out to them. The floors of our office that I sit in has two sizes of meeting rooms: one for eight/nine people and one for three people. Free meeting rooms are scarce during regular hours, so sometimes we cram in to three-person room. It's fun watching the CO2 measurement climb from 800 to 1400. Supposedly 400 ppm is outdoors, 800 ppm is indoors and anything higher is a little unusual. I have fun pointing out the reason why we are all feeling sleepy and docile towards the end of a meeting is because of the CO2! See also: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/06/health/conference-room-air.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/06/health/conference-room-ai...
- EGreg 7y agoI think by 2050 it might be 800+ outdoors That’s what scares me
- mxfh 7y agoThe trajectory the Keeling Curve (+3ppm/year) is on, the dumbing down of (human) cognitive abilities seems to be challenging climate change sooner than I thought on what is the more immediate problem to civilization. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeling_Curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeling_Curve
- Arete314159 7y agoSoon the wealthy will have C02 scrubbers in their homes and cars, and hoi polloi will have to live in a cognitive stupor.
- Viliam1234 7y agoIn 2050, solving global warming will become impossible, because whenever you arrange a meeting about it, all participants will die.
- 11235813213455 7y agoAir-conditioning, CO2 monitoring, etc.. Vs opening a window and have a few trees and plants around Isn't the latter (when possible) better for cognitive capacities and well-being? and most importantly for the global environment
- TazeTSchnitzel 7y agoAIUI plants don't consume nearly enough CO2 to compensate significantly for even one person's output.
- 11235813213455 7y agoI meant outside the room. It's hard to saturate a room in CO2 with a window opened and ventilation. Many big cities are working to improve air quality Having all kind of material to improve locally and artificially the air, like air-conditioning, feels like a temporary hack for a bigger problem, adding even more pollution in the equation
- TheRealBill 7y agoYou need about 1 sansiveria per hundred square feet or so. NASA has spent quite a bit investigating the efficiency and effectiveness of a wide array of plants for CO2 -> exchange. In an office you'll want plants such as bamboo palm, english ivy, peace lily, boston fern and a few others as they do their work presdominantly by day and sequester oxins such as formaldehyde and benzene. They don't have to fully supply everyone's oxygen to be effective, nor do they have to fully consume your CO2. That said, you'd be surprised at how well some of these will do just that. As a rule of thumb, about four mature sansevieria trificiata will convert as much CO2 to O2 as a single human does on a daily basis. But with those they are storing the CO2 by day and releasing O2 by night so while they will sck up the CO2 in your office by day, you won't see the O2 "come back" in that same time - at least not significantly so. Others such as some of the palms and lillies, and a few ferns, would do that same "effort" but in the daytime. Even then, in the context of offices and other rooms in this discussion the part to look at is their CO2 consumption, not the production of O2. Some plants, such as Ficus benjamina are very effective. One (or more) of those with a total leaf surface area of 1 square meter can take a closed room from 2,000ppm CO2 down to 400-500ppm in one hour (variance based on temperature and light levels).
- _def 7y agoI hope we'll have those kind of sensors in our phones someday. Also you have to be lucky enough to be working with people who care about this stuff