22 ms·

I bought a CO2 monitor and it broke me

• zsolt224 4y ago
  The only solution is a ventilation system. Get the one that recovers humidity too, not only heat. It is required by law in most European countries in new constructions.
• robomartin 4y ago
  I have posted about this on HN in the past, suggesting everyone truly interested in understanding the general reality of CO2 concentration needsto buy a CO2 meter and understand the world around them first.
  • amalgamated_inc 4y ago
    Or just do it to find out your bedroom/office/kitchen is unhealthy.
  • bradknowles 4y ago
    There's lots of good videos on the subject of proper ventilation on the "Home Performance" channel on YouTube. See https://youtube.com/@HomePerformance https://youtube.com/@HomePerformance
• ladberg 4y ago
  I have a similar monitor and if I never open a window for days it can get up to 2000 but I feel like I can keep it at ~600 just by always leaving a window slightly cracked open (not enough to noticeably cool the apartment). Using the stove or oven will definitely spike it though to scary levels! I've made a habit of keeping the windows fully open when I cook now.
• twawaaay 4y ago
  I bought Aranet4 and it taught me a lot about how CO2 accumulates in my apartment, how and frequently to change air and so on. The worst thing you can do is to close yourself in your room for the night. Always have either door or window open. If it is cold outside, just buy a goose down duvet. You will sleep much better in a cold room than in a warm with stuffy air. I am looking into putting heat exchanger in my apartment so that I can change air with less energy waste. I also changed some of my habits. I try to use less of the gas stove and more of electric grill, Instant Pot, etc. If I need to use gas then I always change air afterwards.
  • flandish 4y ago
    Hey so - closed doors are important. They stop smoke and fire from filling the bedroom giving you time to either escape or prepare to die. Sleep with your door closed and with smoke / CO (I know this is an article abt CO2) detectors. Source: am firefighter, sleeps in bedroom.
    • jandrese 4y ago
      You're making me choose between dying from CO2 asphyxiation and smoke inhalation... I'm not sure why it's such a problem to have a possible 15% cognitive decline while I'm sleeping. I'm already an idiot in my dreams.
    • twawaaay 4y ago
      Say what you want, I would prefer to get woken up by smoke earlier to have time to attend to my family. My doctor is constantly asking me to do a surgery on my temporomandibular joint to prevent my teeth going out of whack constantly and my face to look better. And I am constantly telling him I would prefer to keep fixing my teeth every so often than go through an extremely invasive operation and risk possible problems.
      • qbasic_forever 4y ago
        Your smoke detectors are what should alert you of fire, not smoke getting so thick and dense that it chokes you awake... at that point you have seconds to react and live.
        • flandish 4y ago
          Yeah. I have no clue what that prior reply was about. Detectors save lives. That’s the long and short of it. One in every bedroom, hallway/basement/attic, and kitchen/living spaces doesn’t hurt.
          • deleted 4y ago
            [deleted]
• pmw 4y ago
  Can anyone recommend a quality CO2 monitor for personal/home use?
  • stuaxo 4y ago
    The Aranet 4 is good, not cheap - but I got one eventually.
    • secabeen 4y ago
      They show up in bulk on eBay for about half price pretty often.
  • dilippkumar 4y ago
    I have an Airthings Wave. It does CO2 along with a couple of other things. I really like mine. It helped me discover that I was sensitive to volatile organic compounds: every time I felt the air was stuffy inside my apartment, it corresponded to a VOC peak that was happening right then. The one downside to the Airthings Wave is that it looks like hospital equipment. Grey, lifeless plastic pill design that was probably outdated even in the 1970s. If you ignore how it looks, it works fantastic.
    • cypherpunks01 4y ago
      I'd second the Airthings device, they have pretty high quality sensors and include VOCs, CO2, pm2.5, radon, and a few others. A little bit pricey is the only downside for me.
    • xnx 4y ago
      Love my Airthings Wave. It works exactly as advertised and is very easy to export all the readings as CSV.
    • sliken 4y ago
      Love mine. I think it looks fine, has a simple display to display a few values, white, and nicely rounded. Basically invisible. I use it to collect the info so I can look at the graphs as needed. Seems like a really nice design. I was impressed that bluetooth LE was enough to connect reliably across 3 floors (with the gateway on the middle floor) of my house. The view plus automatically acts as a hub if you plug in USB for power, but falls back to batteries as needed. All in all just about perfect, it works, easy to setup, and collects tons of data (Radon, PM2.5, CO2, Humidity, Temp, VOC, and pressure). I do wish it collected carbon monoxide though.
• jandrese 4y ago
  I wonder if his apartment has gas heat and when opening the window to air it out he was causing the furnace to kick on and pump out loads more CO2? That would also explain the spikes during the cold overnight hours.
  • nanna 4y ago
    Her apartment.
  • bentley 4y ago
    Does a furnace put out enough CO₂ to worry about? The main concern is usually CO.
    • kesslern 4y ago
      A furnace shouldn't be adding CO2 or CO to your air. Those combustion products should all be exhausted out of the house.
      • jandrese 4y ago
        Maybe this is something to have the landlord check? In practice I don't think most gas furnaces are as well sealed as advertised. Many years ago when I lived in a house with gas heat with a dodgy pilot light I got a pretty good feel for how the thing was put together and it was absolutely not hermetically sealed.
        • Brian_K_White 4y ago
          It's not supposed to be sealed, it's just supposed to have draft. (the flue always vacumming from convection)
          • throw0101c 4y ago
            > It's not supposed to be sealed, it's just supposed to have draft. It depends on the model. High (>90%) efficiency, condensing furnaces are completely sealed off from the house: they take in air from the outside (via PVC pipe), combust, extract the heat, and exhaust the results (via PVC pipes). * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBVvnDfW2Xo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBVvnDfW2Xo Older lower efficiency (<85-90%) furnaces suck in air from the house, exhaust into metal pipes (PVC would melt because not as much heat is extracted from the fumes), can be back-drafted and you have to worry about CO. Basically: if the furnace has vents in which you can see a pilot light, it's the older style.
• dumpsterlid 4y ago
  [dead]
• stuaxo 4y ago
  I have an Aranet 4, mostly able to keep things around 600 with a little bit of ventilation. It goes up when we're together in a small room with no door open, I'm planning on eventually retrofitting MVHR which should help improve indoor air quality and allow me to insulate. In the meantime the Aranet is good for getting a handle on general air quality and how you can improve it.
• fotta 4y ago
  If you want to DIY it, Aranet4 uses a Senseair Sunrise which can be had for 1/4 of the price on Digikey [0]. Senseair has Arduino samples on GitHub [1]. I personally have an SCD30 monitor which claims the same accuracy and like it. The important thing is to calibrate them in outside air to 400ppm. [0] https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/senseair/006-0-0007/13981683 https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/senseair/006-0-00... [1] https://github.com/Senseair-AB/Sunrise-Examples---Arduino https://github.com/Senseair-AB/Sunrise-Examples---Arduino
  • sleepytimetea 4y ago
    Thank you...$250 sounds excessive. I can hook up an OLED screen and ESP32 to the senseair and get the same ? I could even send levels to my home IOT InfluxDB for historical charting.
    • fotta 4y ago
      Yep. I do the exact same thing with my SCD30 and an ESP32 with HomeSpan to bridge it to HomeKit.
    • dathinab 4y ago
      you can do so, and properly calibrate it, and cross check it with some "known good" sensor you lend yourself from a friend and make sure you get the heat sensitivity of sensor and stuff like that right etc. most people can't, or more precise they probably can put something together but can't make sure it works correctly under any situation (in operation range) what you pay for is that someone makes sure it works properly else you can get sensors with similar or same hardware on amazon too, it's just that their correct reliability is not guaranteed at all and just checking if the values outside seem right is by far not enough to verify that (because it e.g. might behave right on low but not high CO2 levels or not on high/low humidity, etc.)
      • Youden 4y ago
        You generally don't have to go to all that effort unless you want extreme accuracy. For "Good enough", you buy the sensor, follow the application notes and instructions from the manufacturer, calibrate it in fresh outdoor air and you're good to go.
• strstr 4y ago
  In 2020 I bought a Netatmo CO2 sensor, since it was cheaper than the alternatives. Not sure how accurate it was, but it seemed accurate enough (450-500 outside). Live in the PNW with only electric heating/stove/oven. Cracking the window very slightly was enough to keep CO2 relatively low (600-800). Had to crack the window more when the temp is around 70 outside, less when the temp delta is higher (cold or warm). Eventually ditched the device once I understood how to keep CO2 low. The cloud integration was creepy. I could tell when my wife or I went to bed based on CO2 spiking near the sensor.
  • jchw 4y ago
    A potential alternative for haters of the cloud: I got an Airthings Wave+ unit. Home Assistant can immediately connect to it via Bluetooth LE and get readings. It'll be auto detected if it's within range when you put the batteries in, assuming your HA install has Bluetooth support (mine worked out of the box with a Pi 3B.) (Specifically the Wave+ though; the hub apparently will want to connect over wifi instead, so I think it's better to just go for the Wave.)
    • sliken 4y ago
      The airthings git repos for waveplus-reader, wave-reader- wavemini-reader, and graphana-airthings-datasource.
• spoils19 4y ago
  [flagged]
• bryceacc 4y ago
  i have massive conflict with co2 monitoring, just like this article. I have monitored my air for years, mostly for PM levels from fires but co2 came with it. I became obsessed with lowering the co2 at the expense of cold temperatures, but I have never noticed a "cognitive" difference between 2k ppm and outside. instead I just feel physical unrest with seeing the high number, like I am suffocating on this "clearly bad air". Yet I am certain if I was completely unaware of it I would have no issues. Any time friends come over and it's winter, ppm in an apartment would be 2500+ and nobody cares
  • colechristensen 4y ago
    I can tell. I’m thinking there is a lot of individual variance for co2 tolerance. I can feel 800+ ppm and after i have had the sensor a while can tell what the concentration is within 25% or so without looking. I also feel the cognitive effects, and moreso the positive effects of opening a window. Different places I’ve loved have had significantly different characteristics for what co2 concentration defaults to. I’m guessing a not so small proportion of mental health issues and things like chronic fatigue are actually breathing issues and sensitivity to higher co2 concentrations. For me a big factor is I broke my nose long ago and don’t breathe as well as I should.
    • ianai 4y ago
      If you can, you should try a "blind" test outside your home sometime. i.e. Bring the monitor to a hotel room for your next stay, try to guess it, and then see what the actual number is.
  • clairity 4y ago
    right, CO₂ has become a (inter-)national psychosomatic obsession of the privileged class, but no one should be worrying about CO₂ at all, unless you work in some very specific industries. you'd need a ppm of 50,000-100,000 to feel any real effect from CO₂, or to see noticeable greenhouse effects from it. it's today's equivalent of fearing power lines or MMR vaccines. it's fretting on something that feels tangible and controllable, without delving deeper and examining the (social and mass) media-driven presumptions underlying those fears. pollution, on the other hand, is a real concern. that's stuff like radon, VOCs, methane, dioxins, and SOₓ emissions. as such, one thing we should be doing with vigor and relentless focus is phasing out coal plants (if we were actually putting our priorities in the right place) rather than worrying about the sideshow that is carbon emissions.
• jerlam 4y ago
  The idea that indoors air can be hazardous is an old idea, and predates CO2 monitors and gas stoves. Following the 1918 Influenza Pandemic (aka Spanish Flu), apartments in NYC were built with absurdly large heaters so that residents could be comfortable while all the windows were open [0]. There's also the German practice of lüften [1], or ventilating a home at least once per day; and the Scandinavian idea of having babies nap outside [2]. I have a Hydrofarm Autopilot CO2 monitor and it pretty much stays at 600-800 all day, but I leave a window cracked open and live in a naturally windy area. [0] <https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/apartment-radiator-pandemic-spread/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/apartment-radiator-pandemi...> [1] <https://blogs.transparent.com/german/luften-germanys-airing-obsession-covid-19/ https://blogs.transparent.com/german/luften-germanys-airing-...> [2] <https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21537988 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21537988>
  • leipert 4y ago
    Once a day? Multiple times a day! Especially “Stoßlüften” (opening a window for a short period) or “Querlüften” (opening windows in opposite rooms to create a draft). First thing in the morning we lüft, after cooking, we lüft, before going to bed… It’s especially important in newer or well renovated houses/apartments, to get rid of excess humidity in order to prevent mold. Really new apartments are so well insulated that they have literal holes in the wall (Zwangsbelüftung) in order have some airflow. Edit: I was so enthusiastic to write a comment about lüften, that I didn’t read your link which actually covers what I said.
    • ggm 4y ago
      [flagged]
    • okr 4y ago
      Does it not depend on the windows, though? My contract in a new place does not require me to open windows several times a day anymore. The windows seem to have a built in mechanism, that allows for air exchange. I can even feel a cool breeze sometimes, so something is definitly going on, though very subtle.
• rale00 4y ago
  Sounds like the meter was broken or at least wasn't properly calibrated. CO2 level should drop off quickly with a window open.
  • lstodd 4y ago
    Yeah, this. 1000ppm is very noticeable, true 2000 is unbearable. Living in a center of a city next to a 10-line highway opening a window drops a properly calibrated sensor into 400s inside a few minutes.
  • _Microft 4y ago
    She brought the meter outside where it measured 480ppm.
  • AlexandrB 4y ago
    I think so too. Use to work with a lot of CO2 sensors in a previous job and it's very difficult to keep an elevated CO2 level going if there's any exchange of air with the outside.
• deleted 4y ago
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• jpm_sd 4y ago
  https://archive.is/TwJ5A https://archive.is/TwJ5A
• WalterBright 4y ago
  > an HVAC with ultra-high-quality filters and a continuously running fan That isn't going to do a thing about CO2.
  • dragonwriter 4y ago
    > That isn't going to do a thing about CO2. It should, because of the V in HVAC.
    • jms703 4y ago
      Most residential implementations don't pull in fresh air.
      • leipert 4y ago
        But in a larger apartment or house it could mean that if you occupy one room, like the bedroom, you get air with less CO2 from other rooms. If you have no ventilation on and no airflow, it must be worse.
      • jchw 4y ago
        Doesn't seem to matter: running just the fans alone is enough to lower CO2 readings in my house. I suspect the main reason is just diffusion of concentrations of CO2.
        • dathinab 4y ago
          potentially, the air volume of a room hugely affects how often you have to air the room (but can also making the airing take longer depending on window size, arrangement, wind, etc.) one of the reasons some people swear on living in houses build around 1900 where I live, the larger ceiling height adds air volume (there are other reasons like large windows, wooden floors, etc.).
          • panarky 4y ago
            >> That isn't going to do a thing about CO2 Seems like we're forgetting that the objective is not to reduce CO2, it's to reduce the pathogens in the air. Since it's difficult to measure pathogens directly, we use CO2 concentrations as a proxy, since high CO2 means poor ventilation which means potentially high pathogens.
• mindslight 4y ago
  Am I reading this wrong, or does the author really keep mentioning "attempts" at things that will do absolutely nothing to CO2 levels? Non-venting range hood? Box fan with filter? These will do nothing for CO2. The only way you're going to bring down CO2 levels in your dwelling is to bring in outside air. The best way would be installing a heat recovery vent that will save some energy. The simple way would be to open two windows and stick the fan in one for a short time (blowing in for turbulence to clear out the corners of the room). Leaving your windows open with passive circulation for a longer time is going to cool down all the stuff inside, wasting much more heat.
  • xnx 4y ago
    The article is a little mixed up, but the author does seem to understand this. I don't think the author knows she needs to try and set up distinct air intakes and outputs with her windows and fans.
• brendangregg 4y ago
  I've had a few CO2 meters, and learned not to trust any <$100 as they don't really work. I look for meters that use non-dispersive infrared diffusion sensors (NDIRs), like the Aranet4. I've found the TIM10 desktop model from co2meter.com to be accurate (AFAICT), uses NDIRs, and only US$139. I also have other air quality meters. (I collect measuring devices.) I wish there was a do-it-all air meter.
  • johntash 4y ago
    Do you know if the Aranet4 can be used over bluetooth/wifi without internet access? I've been looking at a bunch of devices and haven't seen aranet yet. Also, have you ever put all of your devices near each other to compare the variance between them all?
    • bradknowles 4y ago
      AraNet4 does Bluetooth, yes. Mine is doing that right now. You can get wifi bridges as well, see https://devel.aranet.com/products/ https://devel.aranet.com/products/
      • secabeen 4y ago
        ESPHome on a ESP32 makes a nice Bluetooth2Ethernet Bridge. I've seen Aranet4's on eBay for under $150 pretty regularly, so I'd look there.
    • ellisv 4y ago
      Yes the base model not supports Bluetooth
    • xolox 4y ago
      I got my Aranet4 because it had very good reviews and allowed local read out of sensor data without any "cloud" involvement. I've been very happy with it, the readings are integrated into my Home Assistant setup so automations can respond to high CO2 (e.g. turn on a fan directed at a window, when temperatures are high enough to have a window open).
• 60secs 4y ago
  If your co2 is high why not just some houseplants? Seems like a few snake plants would easily handle that level. https://balconygardenweb.com/most-effective-co2-absorbing-houseplants-proven-by-science/ https://balconygardenweb.com/most-effective-co2-absorbing-ho...
  • etrautmann 4y ago
    From that article you linked: "In a study at Naresuan University, Phitsanulok, Thailand, the snake plant can absorb CO2 at 0.49 ppm/m3 in the closed system." That would require an enormous number of snake plants to do anything. A tiny apartment is 50m^2 * 3m = 150 cubic meters, so it requires 300 snake plants just to bring down by 1ppm (though not sure over what timescale or other assumptions in the work cited)
    • _ache_ 4y ago
      Don't you mean 0.5ppm/m3 per minutes? Because you need to take time into account and it's more coherent with the result of other studies (an optimist case with good sunlight but 0.4ppm/m3/m is ok I guess for young plant).
      • etrautmann 4y ago
        yeah I'm not sure what the timebase is but I wondered that myself. I assumed it was per hour or day, but not an expert in plant biology and my assumption sounds like it was wrong.
      • etrautmann 4y ago
        from [1] 'The approximate amount of carbon exhaled by a single human in 1 d is 300 g, whereas the carbon content of 1 L of gasoline is 640 g. In comparison, a single Spathiphyllum in a 15-cm pot grown at a PPF of 20 mmolm–2s–1 fixed 0.8 g C per day, so it would take 400 plants to offset a single human or 845 plants to offset a gasoline use of 1 Ld–1.' [1] https://www.realhomes.com/news/do-house-plants-remove-carbon-dioxide-from-homes#:~:text=air.%20A%20recent-,study,-(opens%20in%20new https://www.realhomes.com/news/do-house-plants-remove-carbon...
• stavros 4y ago
  It's a bit weird to me that people get a sensor and then worry about the air. What are the symptoms of elevated CO2 levels? Why can't you feel them and need a monitor to tell you you are unwell?
  • eulers_secret 4y ago
    > What are the symptoms of elevated CO2 levels? Why can't you feel them and need a monitor to tell you you are unwell? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide#Below_1% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide#Below_1% The most convincing evidence is from the ISS: at 5000ppm CO2, the crew experienced "headaches, lethargy, mental slowness, emotional irritation, and sleep disruption." - so you can feel too high a CO2 level and open a window (if you know to consider that as a problem which causes these symptoms). The studies suggesting 1000ppm may be harmful are called out in the wiki article and it seems the jury is still out as to if the effects are real/are the result of CO2 and not confounding issues.
    • stavros 4y ago
      Sorry, I should have been clearer. I understand that there are harmful effects you can feel at very high concentrations, but it's weird to me that some people (like the author) are freaking out over concentrations they can't feel.
      • brnt 4y ago
        Well... People aren't rational. Or particularly good self-observers. For any given concern, there's going to be a group worried too little and a group worried too much.
      • kolinko 4y ago
        Some people are more sensitive than the others. Also, if you haven't experienced living in a well ventilated home, you may not realise you feel it - you may think that going outside is good because sun and movement, and not because you finally get fresh air.
  • 4y ago
• dathinab 4y ago
  Even on healthy apartments it's common that you have to air them 3 (maybe 4) times a day for around 30min each to have low CO2 levels (assuming you spend the whole day indoors in a single room apartment with not too much air volume, no kitchen usage or separate kitchen you have the door closed to, etc.). Most people I know don't air out their room/apartment long enough and/or often enough. And I have been thinking about getting some form of huge fan to speed up the airing exchange process in winter.
  • tzs 4y ago
    > Even on healthy apartments it's common that you have to air them 3 (maybe 4) times a day for around 30min each to have low CO2 levels. Would it work to just open small openings on opposite sides of the apartment and put a small fan on one and run it continuously? With the right fan speed that should be equivalent to the big 30 minute airing ever few hours, but I'd expect it would be less disruptive when it comes to comfort because it should result in much less temperature variation.
    • dathinab 4y ago
      In the end it's all a matter of how much air is exchanged if air from everywhere inside is at least somewhat affected and how high/low the outside CO2 levels are. E.g. if you have a apartment in the 5th floor where always have a bit of wind and can open windows so that the wind flows through just opening it for 5min might have as much effect as other people get with 40min. Or e.g. if you have the right kind of wind putting windows into tilting mode can work well and in other cases (like my apartment) you will leak heat with very little air exchange. I have been thinking about using some sort of fan but haven't tried it out. Part of the reason is that in summer I just can keep the window open all the time and currently we have winter temperatures around 4-7C during the day and my room temperature is most times around 16C in winter anyway, so ... it's not too much of a heating problem (compared to people heating their room to 20+C).
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• xyzelement 4y ago
  I had the opposite experience. Bought an AirThings and it made it clear that co2 gets high with windows closed and the heat on. We live in a nice suburb near the water so outside air is clean. I now crack the windows open and co2 stays reasonable. I feel much better. Before this, I was anal about insulation and making sure windows were closed when the heat was on. Now I know that's not the right calculus. I could have figured out that I feel worse in the winter at home and feel good the moment I step outside. But having the numbers shown to me really drove a change in behavior
  • jchw 4y ago
    I had a somewhat similar experience. However, before living in an area with clean air in a house, I previously lived in apartments and was well aware that the CO2 (and PM2.5) levels were unideally high. I feel like the author should maybe ask a medical professional about anxiety, unless they're just being a bit melodramatic.
    • JPKab 4y ago
      They have anxiety issues, no question about it.
  • dathinab 4y ago
    With perfect insulation theoretically you need to put in a lot of additional care to make sure the air in an apartment stays right (and fungi doesn't start growing, etc.). This include some system for automatic air exchange (which also keeps the heat in and isn't prone to fungi and isn't loud/distracting and doesn't draw a lot of energy; not easy to get right at all). Guess what basically is non existing in close to all modern apartments I have seen... Instead they tell you you have to "appropriately" air you apartment and skipping over the fact that this might mean 3 times a day 30min no matter what temperature is outside (on dais you stay home all day).
    • cardanome 4y ago
      30min is excessive and counterproductive because it will cool down your home too much. around 5 minutes with windows fully open and heating closed will do the trick. You want to maximize air exchange while minimizing heat loss. This is common wisdom in Germany but the rest of the world seems to either prefer to heat the outside air instead of insulating their houses or must live in very sticky rooms. I just can't imagine not ventilating a room regularly.
• cardanome 4y ago
  I recently bought an CO2 monitor and it was a very good decision. I was shocked to see how fast CO2 will build up in just a few hours. Specifically online meetings when I do a lot of talking seem to drive it up. That said, opening windows will drive the CO2 down to 500ppm in a few minutes. I think the OP does not know how to properly ventilate a room. You need to completely open the window or even multiple windows. They probably just had it half-open which will waste energy. Also, if you look at the actual limits, no 1.2k ppm is not horrible. It will regularly reach 1.5k or more for me. Prolonged exposure of that can make you a bit sleepy but there is not reason to panic. So, ventilate a few times a day properly. Don't just have the windows open all the day or the heating bill will kill you.
  • xyzelement 4y ago
    // They probably just had it half-open which will waste energy. Can you explain that? I recently started to leave the window open 1-5 inches and it's done a good job, I am curious why half opening a window is problematic.
    • distances 4y ago
      The ideal situation is that you exchange all your inside air in as small timespan as possible. Air doesn't hold that much heat, so your walls, furniture and other mass retains their heat. The new fresh air gets heated up relatively fast. So you want maximum airflow for a short time. Best way is to fully open windows on different sides of the house and hope that creates the flow. Very common method in Germany, they call it Stoßlüftung.
      • criddell 4y ago
        I don’t worry about heating in the winter, but I do worry about cooling in the summer. When it’s 102F/38C outside, my AC can barely hold 76F/24C inside. If I open a window for 5 minutes, I get a blast of hot air that will result in my AC running for hours. On a hot day, the indoor temperature probably won’t drop until overnight.
• car 4y ago
  I am using a WYND Halo air quality monitor, which was a Kickstarter. It monitors CO2 and other pollutants like VOC, even shows the particle size. Temperature, humidity and light intensity are also tracked. The app shows charts, but I haven't figured out how to download the data. The Halo can also control an air purifier, which has been really handy. It's pretty cool to see the air quality improve while the purifier does its thing. This was especially important when we had horrible air quality due to forest fires. Edit: The app actually let's me export all data as CSV.
• foxes 4y ago
  Buy some plants.
  • autoexec 4y ago
    I've considered this myself, but I have a feeling that if I did the math on it, it'd turn out that I'd need an impractical number of plants to keep the air quality at an ideal level
    • Rebelgecko 4y ago
      Depending on the size of your household you may need hundreds of plants
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      • antisceptic 4y ago
        If you mean the size of the house, that's wrong. It depends on the number of inhabitants in the home and how often the home is ventilated. Considering plants grow in (lean) mass considerably faster than (adult) humans, the number of plants should be a much smaller number than "hundreds."
        • Rebelgecko 4y ago
          Household refers to the number of occupants in the house, not its physical size. A family of 4 can easily create over 1,000 pounds of CO2 per year. Common houseplants like Spathiphyllum can absorb about 0.8g of CO2 per day, so we can be super generous and call it 1 pound per year. So you'd need around 1,000 plants, reduced depending on ventilation and how much exhalation you do outside of home.
• p1mrx 4y ago
  Last year, I made https://github.com/pmarks-net/exhale https://github.com/pmarks-net/exhale to automatically ventilate my house when CO2 levels are high, using a smart switch connected to the bathroom vent.
  • Retric 4y ago
    You can use heat recovery ventilation to swap indoor and outdoor air far more efficiently than using a simple exhaust fan. The basic idea idea is you run a heat exchanger between the air you’re venting outside and the air you’re replace it with. Commercial versions run around 1,000$ but you can DIY something that’s reasonably efficient for far less. Just remember counter current flow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_exchanger#/media/File:Comparison_of_con-_and_counter-current_flow_exchange.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_exchanger#/media/File:Com...
• ahaucnx 4y ago
  I am living in an area with periodic very high air pollution. So opening the windows to bring CO2 down will bring in fine dust pollution. I retrofitted my house with a demand controlled fresh air ventilation system that takes outside air runs it through a set of high performance filters and pushes it into the house. I can consistently keep PM2.5 levels at zero and CO2 below 600ppm. I wrote an article about it [1] including detailed charts about CO2 build up. [1] https://www.airgradient.com/open-airgradient/blog/positive-pressure-systems-for-clean-air/ https://www.airgradient.com/open-airgradient/blog/positive-p...
  • cactusplant7374 4y ago
    That is truly awesome. How much did you spend?
    • ahaucnx 4y ago
      There was quite some work involved because the house was originally very leaky and for this system to work it needs a very good sealed home. So I spent quite some time and money to close the leaks. It probably cost me a few thousand USD to get it to this point but for us it was definitely worth it. Especially because we periodically have extremely high outdoor air pollution.
      • cactusplant7374 4y ago
        Does the few thousand include the blowers?
        • ahaucnx 4y ago
          Yes but it was a very customized solution which we also used to test and improve our air quality monitors that we develop.
      • technological 4y ago
        How did you find the leaks ?
• NelsonMinar 4y ago
  What worries me is any amount of elevated CO2 has a measurable cognitive decline. Even going from 400ppm to 600ppm has a statistically significant change. The climate crisis is making us collectively dumber. Opening a window can actually make you smarter. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac1bd8 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac1bd8
  • sarchertech 4y ago
    The study you linked used C02 as a proxy for low ventilation, it wasn't measuring the effect of C02 on cognitive performance. The navy routinely operates submarines at 3500ppm or more, and they've been conducting studies since the 60s which have failed to show a cognitive decline from levels as high as 30,000ppm. Here's a HN comment with a good summary. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19863319 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19863319
    • rayiner 4y ago
      So pop science is bullshit, again? Why do I keep falling for it.
      • colordrops 4y ago
        Sounds like you just changed your mind based on an anonymous comment.
      • jldugger 4y ago
        Probably because you spend all days indoors watching TED talks in poorly ventilated apartments.
        • andirk 4y ago
          Lol TED talks are a joke [0]. But depending on where one lives, better air quality may be inside or outside. The cleanest air I can breathe locally is in my grow room that is completely sealed except for a HEPA intake w/ same size exhaust that resupplies all new air per ~5 minutes, while I smoke my spliff, and it is very noticeable. I think I'm dumb for a lot of reasons but now I can add CO2 to the mix. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZBKX-6Gz6A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZBKX-6Gz6A
• rcme 4y ago
  Step one needs to be to buy a second monitor and verify that they both have the same reading in the same space. It would not surprise me at all if the monitors were simply inaccurate.
• phyzome 4y ago
  Honestly, I've become a bit skeptical of these claims that 1000 ppm CO2 causes any appreciable cognitive impairment.
• erik_p 4y ago
  If only there was something you could keep in your apartment that consumes CO2...
  • LinkLink 4y ago
    I know right all this talk about fancy tech and filters how about a sun lamp and a fern lol
  • greenpeas 4y ago
    Yes, about 50 square meters of leaf surface per human to offset their CO2 output. https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/26668/how-many-plants-would-be-needed-to-produce-oxygen-enough-for-20-humans https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/26668/how-many-pla...
  • rogers18445 4y ago
    You exhale about 1kg of CO2 per day, 27% of it is carbon. Have you ever noticed your plants gaining 300g of matter per day? You need enormous quantities of chloroplast life in your house to help you - and to constantly shovel excess out, impractical. I have heard about some people keeping an aquarium (with growth lights) full of algae and they swear by it, but maintenance is high.
  • namibj 4y ago
    Yes, you can sequester your exhaust as limestone. Or as soda. There are no other ways that are affordable enough to be feasible, and don't cause giant energy consumption/pollute the air with smelly chemicals. Unless you live in a commercial-scale greenhouse, literally in the same room as the plants, you can forget about photosynthesis.
• LinkLink 4y ago
  For a trip to your local garden center and 20-30$ at your local home depot/general store you too can achieve the hidden aeons old solution to co2 buildup. https://www.amazon.com/Lights-Plant-Indoor-Plants-Spectrum/dp/B08237VJ5W/ https://www.amazon.com/Lights-Plant-Indoor-Plants-Spectrum/d... https://urbanplants.co.in/blogs/news/most-effective-co2-absorbing-houseplants-proven-by-science https://urbanplants.co.in/blogs/news/most-effective-co2-abso...
  • JohnBooty 4y ago
    The "number one rated" plant, Bird's Nest Fern, will consume CO2 at the rate of approximately 2ppm per hour per pot. So, if you've accidentally spiked your CO2 levels up to 2000ppm, one of these bad boys should get you back down to a mere 1000ppm in a tidy 1000 hours or so.... assuming you've evacuated all humans and animals from the house and nullified all other sources of CO2 emission. There are a lot of great reasons to have indoor plants; just be realistic about their ability to meaningfully impact indoor CO2 levels.
    • LinkLink 4y ago
      Okay so 4 ferns would do it in 250 +- 100 hours then. I'm not saying one home garden will solve global co2 buildup I'm saying its significantly cheaper and potentially more rewarding as a hobby than trying to play god with air quality and a 1k budget. You're also not accounting for gaseous exchange rates related as a function to current air quality. Yes a terrible PPM is 2000 but your body produces less co2 as a result of reduced function in such an environment, therefore increasing the effect of any filtration.
      • JohnBooty 4y ago
        The bottom line is that you need thousands of plants to offset the CO2 exhaled by a single person. From what I can tell the ppm estimates on that page you linked are pretty generous -- they seem to be talking about the plants affecting the CO2 ppm in a very very small environment. I'm saying its significantly cheaper and potentially more rewarding as a hobby than trying to play god with air quality and a 1k budget I don't think I agree with this dichotomy. It's like saying reading books is more fun than playing the guitar. You can do both! They're not really in conflict! And anyway, you can do a lot with indoor air quality for 1K.
• diebeforei485 4y ago
  The key is to open all windows for a short amount of time. You can also turn on any exhaust fans (kitchen hoods, bathroom exhausts, etc). This way you change the air, without losing too much heat from the floors/mattresses/furniture.
• readthenotes1 4y ago
  We should bring one of these to each meeting, leaving when CO2 gets above some threshold
• dolni 4y ago
  I see a lot of people who talk about CO2, and I hear almost nobody talk about CO. CO2 is much easier for our bodies to deal with than CO. CO2 won't kill you unless it's at exceptionally high concentrations. In cold regions, gas burning furnaces produce a good deal of CO. There are alarms for CO, of course. But in the course of researching CO & UL standards around alerting, I found that most consumer CO alarms don't even alert until CO is above 30ppm. Additionally, for UL-certified CO alarms with an ambient "max reading" function, they don't even report anything below 10ppm. Levels as low as 5.5ppm have been shown to significantly increase risk for low birth weight: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9872713/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9872713/ For context, the CO level outside, where there is fresh air, is 0-2ppm. Carbon monoxide really is the silent killer and doesn't get talked about enough.
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  • sinuhe69 4y ago
    I agree. But in most homes/office spaces, there is no source for CO, so people don't worry about it too much. It's of course a different matter if people have to heat their house with coal firing or something similar. Every winter I heard stories about CO deaths in developing countries again. That's really sad :'(
    • poulsbohemian 4y ago
      Additionally, in many states there is a requirement to have CO detectors anyway, and it is generally built-in functionality to modern smoke alarms. So it's a double whammy of many homes not having any source of CO plus having built in detectors.
      • dolni 4y ago
        I think you've sort of missed the point I was making. Yes, CO detectors will alarm when CO levels are high enough to kill you. They will intentionally NOT alarm if there is a low, persistent level of CO that probably has devastating health effects over the long term (think 20ppm in your house all the time). Some years ago, my furnace had a cracked heat exchanger and, unknown to me, was pushing CO into my living space. I only noticed by luck. I walked by one of my CO alarms, hit the "max level" button and thought to myself that 25ppm is quite high. So I reset it and checked it again the next day. Sure enough, it shot back up.
• blkhawk 4y ago
  I build a combined real CO2/ppm monitor 3 years ago and I leaned quite a bit about indoor CO2 accumulates in practice and how to actually prevent it building up at all. This is from a single sensor I moved around over months so I might have drawn the wrong conclusions but CO2 seems to "pool" at lover heights and "fall" over surfaces such as tables from a "source" such as a human breathing. So don't put it on your desk surface but somewhere else in the room. Also it seems to take a long time for a well ventilated space to build up to high CO2 levels - days for my apartment. I could entirely prevent any buildup at measuring heights of it by not quite closing a window furthest from my apartment door. My theory is that movent in the hallways of my apartment building slowly pushed air out that window thus replacing the air in my apartment fully over days. By not quite closed I mean closed but the lever that presses the window into its the seals only slightly engaged. A Year after I started my Measurements there was some maintenance done on the windows to make them more airtight. Since then I do not need to keep the window half closed anymore because I can't get the CO2 meter to show anything but baseline except when sitting right in front of me on my desk.
  • danparsonson 4y ago
    > CO2 seems to "pool" at lower heights Don't know if you're aware but CO2 is denser than normal dry air and therefore tends to sink, so this would agree with your observations.
    • blkhawk 4y ago
      I am aware - I was trying to convey my experimental results ;)
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• Slighted 4y ago
  Reading the fear mongering and paranoia in the article you'd think their brain capacity was down 100 percent rather than 50.
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• godelski 4y ago
  The story here is quite odd. I also ordered a CO2 meter and it changed my thoughts about my apartment. But in a former life I worked in fluid modeling. > At baseline, the levels in my apartment were already dancing around 1,200 (ppm)...(marketing numbers)... I flung open a window... Two hours laterthe Aranet still hadn’t budged below 1,000 ppm Something is very wrong here if your house/apartment is getting cold and a CO2 meter near a window is not dropping. Author should take it outside and check to see a number <500ppm (probably closer to 420). Device could be broken or poorly calibrated. It happens. As for air flow in the apartment, this can often still be quite a mystery and weird to solve. My bedroom would constantly be above 800ppm, and above 600ppm with an open window. The solution? Opening a window on the other side of the apartment (need to pay very careful attention to paths that air can travel). A cracked window in my bedroom, a cracked window on the other side of the apartment, and boom, my bedroom is constantly near 400ppm (near ambient levels in my area). But opening any other window in the apartment would not lead to this solution. Houses weren't designed with air flow in mind. Lots of hard corners can make it difficult to move air around (eddy currents are a pain). I do sleep better and there's probably some cognitive increase (I don't buy the 15-50%), but one of the larger benefits is the temperature is more stable (stable temperature is a good indication of good air flow btw). So I do encourage others to try this problem solving, but just want to note that the solutions are non-obvious. If you're having these issues, brute force the solution. You'll over think it (I did) but you're too clever by half[0]. You're working with a chaotic system and even the state of a door that doesn't seem in the flow path might affect the flow. If it isn't working, try dumb things and also use temperature as an indicator in addition to CO2. You can always use a fan too (draw air in on the opposite side of the house). [0] https://www.epsilontheory.com/too-clever-by-half/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/too-clever-by-half/
  • _Microft 4y ago
    > Something is very wrong here if your house/apartment is getting cold and a CO2 meter near a window is not dropping. Author should take it outside and check to see a number <500ppm (probably closer to 420). Device could be broken or poorly calibrated. It happens. She tried that: "I wondered, briefly, if my neighborhood just had terrible outdoor air quality—or if my device was broken. Within minutes of my bringing the meter outside, however, it displayed a chill 480."
• antirez 4y ago
  Warning: CO2 is not always correlated with other kind of pollution. I live in Sicily where air quality is good, the climate is warm so we always have open windows. My Aranet tells me that in my office CO2 is around 500. However I've the Etna volcano under my ass here in Catania, so I've alarming levels of radon (for which I've other sensors). As long as I don't take the basement with windows closed, all is fine, but if I close after a few days I see very bad values (but now I installed a big fan continuously pumping air from outside to inside).
  • jve 4y ago
    Yeah, he mixes and correlates CO2 with PPM which is unrelated. > When Jose-Luis Jimenez, an atmospheric chemist at the University of Colorado at Boulder, first picked one up three years ago, he was shocked that it could hold its own against the machines he used professionally. And in his personal life, “it allows you to find the terrible places and avoid them,” he told me, or to mask up when you can’t Let him stuck the aranet in his mask and see how the reading goes. I have a question - is CO2 filterable by active carbon filter?
    • baliex 4y ago
      For the benefit of other readers, I think you mean “..correlates CO2 with PM2.5..” I’m basically a layman here and I agree that CO2 and PM2.5 particles are completely unrelated. PPM is Parts Per Million, i.e. a general measure of density of one substance in another. So, CO2 at 500 ppm makes sense.
    • luma 4y ago
      > is CO2 filterable by active carbon filter Absolutely not. If you want to lower CO2, open a window.
    • def_true_false 4y ago
      Maybe the author just mangled the quote? It sounds like the context was preventing COVID transmission, it even mentions masks. One can reasonably say that the CO2 sensor doesn't distinguish air breathed out by others (dirty) from air breathed out by others and then cleaned by an air purifier (clean, but higher in CO2 than the outdoor baseline). So, if you are in an urban setting where the expected particulate levels are non-zero, you can tell whether the air around you was cleaned by a purifier using a particulate sensor. If it shows zero, it was probably cleaned to some extent.
• gniv 4y ago
  After reading lots of these types of articles I reached the conclusion that opening (multiple) windows for a few minutes a couple times a day is a must, no matter how cold. It also helps with CO, particulates from furniture, radon, viruses etc. Outdoor air is of course not that clean, so my solution is to run a small air purifier. It's quiet enough that I run it non-stop and rarely notice it.
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• mikeytown2 4y ago
  See a video of a co2 monitor in action with a gas stove being used: https://youtu.be/eUywI8YGy0Y https://youtu.be/eUywI8YGy0Y
• arisAlexis 4y ago
  1500ppm cutting 50% of cognitive power is so wrong I wonder how thse articles get so many upvotes here
• fwungy 4y ago
  Indoor air is unhealthy. Also not living in doors is correlated strongly with shortened lifespans. For me, it's the heated house over freezing outside. Sorry lungs.
• ajani 4y ago
  How does such obvious SEO spam (or maybe just an advertising piece for a gadget) get so much interest here?
  • mort96 4y ago
    Probably because the topic of indoor air quality is a very interesting one which a lot of people here are interested in. I've noticed that some posts seem to get upvoted based on their topic rather than their content.
• kuon 4y ago
  It doesn't work in a flat (well unless you are under the roof), but in my house I have 2 electric opening in the roof (velux) that I open nearly (unless rain) daily for 5 minutes to change the air and it works really well, whole house drops to around 450. I compared with opening only a "regular" window, and it doesn't work very well, the air stagnate around the window and the CO2 only drops within a few meters of the window, but still cools the house. I guess it's basic physics as hot air is lighter, but it shows the importance of air flow. Also, changing the air quickly conserves more energy as the rest (furniture, floor...) doesn't have time to cool.
• antisceptic 4y ago
  Did the author stop and wonder why CO2 was important other than some product manual saying so? CO2, in the blood, has a protective role against reactive oxygen species. Oxygen is itself damaging! You don't need to be artificially enhanced by way of superior atmospheric conditions after 9pm when you should instead be getting ready to sleep. On top of that, if someone really cared about making their body utilize O2 better they would be outside doing hill repeats to improve their VO2max. Worrying about carbon dioxide being a hindrance is silly, because having perfect air doesn't by itself make your lungs bring O2 into the bloodstream better. If someone is buying an air quality monitor for life extension purposes they should find one that detects PM2.5 and PM10, and figure out how never to breathe that stuff, daggers for the alveoli. Furthermore, filtering the air doesn't magically reduce CO2. That's stupid. If the author really wanted to reduce CO2, they would have bought 20 plants and placed them around their house.
  • flippinburgers 4y ago
    Plants produce co2 at night.
    • cinntaile 4y ago
      On top of that, 20 plants won't reduce the CO2 in any meaningful way. You need a lot more of them. An order of magnitude more.
      • antisceptic 4y ago
        Maybe you're right that 20 plants wouldn't be enough help, but growing a plant is a real method of replacing CO2 with O2. Running a box fan with a filter taped on it isn't. That was my point.
  • gibolt 4y ago
    IIRC, it takes 7 full-sized trees to match the CO2 output of 1 human. Plants could help somewhat, but unfortunately probably couldn't even offset a cat.
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• t0suj4 4y ago
  From my experience relative air humidity matters the most. I'm trying to keep it between 50-60%. When it gets too high I have difficulty breathing. When it goes too low my skin is flaking. Of the gas appliances... I have never heard anyone having issues with their gas stove as any cooking is usually followed by ventilating the kitchen. Although I've heard a lot of horror stories about CO (carbon monoxide) poisonings from faulty appliances like water heaters. A CO monitor is something I would recommend to anyone having gas appliances at home. Again, based on third-hand experience.
• Havoc 4y ago
  Confused as to why author is measuring CO2 but filtering for particles?
• wkat4242 4y ago
  A CO2 meter doesn't have to cost $250. A good NDIR laser sensor component costs about $50. An acoustic one from sensirion about $40. If you're good with electronics you can integrate those with a $5 wifi microcontroller and you're done. For completed products my Awair lite cost me €100 including VAT (so about $80 pre sales tax) and it also includes an NDIR sensor. As well as fine particle and VOC. One thing to avoid are Chinese sensors which only use "eCO2" - these estimate CO2 levels based on volatile organic compounds and are virtually useless. Also it looks like the author has not understood well how a CO2 sensor functions. It needs to see direct fresh air at least once a week or it won't be accurate. If you don't see a reading of 400 (outside CO2 levels) you're doing it wrong and you're measurements are off. My house rarely goes above 1000 so I think this is part of what got her so scared.
  • def_true_false 4y ago
    Qingping Air Monitor Lite is decent and costs even less than the Awair. It doesn't measure VOCs though.
• 2devnull 4y ago
  I wonder if houseplants would have an impact. Has anybody measured that?
  • 2devnull 4y ago
    Answering my own question, they do. Maybe up to 10-25% reduction in CO2. It seems like a prayer plant might be the best.
• tehnub 4y ago
  It’s not everyday I get such good laughs from an article like this. Very funny writer.
• scotty79 4y ago
  Maybe one could run oxygen concentrator on incomming outside air to lower indoor CO2 levels. I played a bit with small oxygen concentrator, CO2 sensor and a garbage bag. In few minutes CO2 levels in the bag dropped to unmeasurable.
• danjc 4y ago
  Try taking an air quality monitor in your car with the windows wound up, CO2 cracks 1000 within a few mins.
• sizzle 4y ago
  The person who wrote the article didn’t calibrate their CO2 monitor in fresh air so I wonder if the readings are off
• lobocinza 4y ago
  I bought a cheap CO2 meter that actually measured TVOC (or something else) and infered the CO2 from it. Didn't like it. Many things would case false positives: farting, cleaning something with alcohol, steaming food, etc. And it had no option to disable the buzzer which would beep loudly for minutes. Cheap CO2 meter didn't fix anything and created a noise pollution problem.
• boloderolo 4y ago
  Hey, can you link to the Amazon product you bought?
• leaving 4y ago
  I have a good CO2 meter. When I bought it, readings were in the 1200-1400ppm range. I made changes. Now it's normally 600ppm or below. I despise chirpy, wishy-washy science articles. If you're running at the levels described in the article you need to fix it or get out. End of story.
• thenerdhead 4y ago
  > The meter’s cruel readings began to haunt me. Each upward tick raised my anxiety; I started to dread what I’d learn each morning when I woke up. Does anyone else see the problematic nature of "knowing" too much everyday data? This article suggests the fear started due to COVID. This seems like an obsessive-compulsive health anxiety thing. Seems likely given the author writes mostly COVID & health opinion pieces(and a great writer at that). Like many with Apple watches, being able to constantly monitor your vitals can bring both peace of mind and rumination. I can't help but ask...is this a healthy thing to be doing? You can't control the environment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control
  • snarkyturtle 4y ago
    Individuals can't control the environment but legislation can. Regulation can turn smoggy cities into breathable ones. Data works toward that goal.
• benhurmarcel 4y ago
  > two humans and two cats [...] crammed into 1,000 square feet That's 93 m2. That's not small at all, even if they had kids.