when california was on fire, rich people bought $800 air purifiers. medium people taped filters to box fans. my roommate from last year said the entire bottom floor of lowe’s was repurposed just for selling box fans and filters.
the unit she assembled went with her when she moved, so now i want to build one, too. i have a theory it will help with cat dander and dust during the not-on-fire seasons. basically i want an air purifier year-round, just not one of these. in 2016, i actually bought an airmega 400 based on that guide for $600 because my then-roommate had a cat and i thought i was allergic and was sick all the time (turns out i had mono), and i really thought i was a rich person. i never took it out of the box and returned it because it was huge and i came to my senses.
anyway let’s build an air purifier.
fan: 20" box fan, lasko seems to be the most common brand
filter: for wildfires, it needs a rating of at least MERV 13. (find a better info source than this youtube video i just watched that i don’t trist because they taped the filter to the front of the fan)
attachment mechanism: start with tape all the way around the edges. what kind of tape? does it really need to be airtight? last year the one my roommate made was not airtight–it was just two strips of grey duct tape. i think i’ll go woth duct tape all the way around to make a seal.
the filter should be on the BACK of the fan, so the fan is sucking air through the filter (not pushing air into the filter) (find a source).
that should be it.
other considerations:
- our house is incredibly drafty. i bought a bunch of draft foam tape and it’s just been sitting here for a year. all the windows and all the doors leak tons of air. smoke gets in.
- we have carpet in two rooms.
- it is incredibly dusty in the shed-thing under the stairs to our upstairs neighbors.
- it is incredibly dusty under the bathtub where lucy likes to hide. we could clean more regularly and that might improve air quality.
- there are no screens on the windows. i can see a spider on the wall above me and i’m not wearing my glasses right now so that tells you how close it is to me. at this point i just cohabitate with the bugs. at least we don’t have fleas.
this article on webmd says that “doctors say” that air purifiers are the second line of defense, after you do the work to eliminate allergens from your home. https://www.webmd.com/allergies/features/do-you-need-an-air-filter
future iterative improvements:
add a baffle to improve efficiency.
build a nice wooden housing.
do we need two filters? this woodworker has two, one for big particles and one for little ones.
find a way to borrow or commons a device that measures air quality.
