For those suffering on the east coast...

JakeCK

Put one or two of these together, and breath easy. Seriously, they work better then a HEPA filter and are 1/10th the cost. A box fan, 4 merv13 filters, duct tape, and some cardboard.


https://www.texairfilters.com/comparing-the-performance-of-corsi-rosenthal-boxes-made-with-box-fans-and-pc-fans/

ChrisJ

The issue is clearing out, it's over.

And even my drafty house kept 95% of the stink out for the duration.

Mad Dog_2

Smells like a Camp fire 🔥 to me....Mad Dog 🐕 🤣 

ChrisJ

Mad Dog_2 said:

Smells like a Camp fire 🔥 to me....Mad Dog 🐕 🤣 

It's still stinky over by you Mad?

Mad Dog_2

Not sure...In Rhode Island 🏝...Ill see tonight   Mad Dog 🐕 

DanHolohan

My Maryland apartment building had no problems. We have signs. 

Steamhead

We had some of this in Baltimore, too, though not as bad as NYC and points north. Hasn't been this bad here since the 1960s.

JakeCK

ChrisJ said:

The issue is clearing out, it's over. And even my drafty house kept 95% of the stink out for the duration.

It isn't over. The fires are still burning. It's just wafting further to the west again towards my area. But by this weekend it'll push back east. 

That said that's great if you had no problem with it. Don't concern yourself with doing this then. But guess what? Some people have health issues such as asthma where that 5% of remaining pollution could really make their life hell. 

Mad Dog_2

I got asthma & bad allergies but there's nothing I can do about it.  Was this an intentional 🔥 fire?  Thats what I heard.  How many acres it burn so far?  Where in Canada 🇨🇦 did it start ?  Mad Dog 🐕 

ChrisJ

If you have a legitimate health concern maybe you shouldn't be playing with box fans, cardboard and duct tape and invest in proper equipment to handle those concerns?

JakeCK

It's also kind of funny it didn't even make the national news or even set off air quality alerts until it started affecting the big cities like NYC despite it causing issues long before these past couple days further west. Last Friday driving home from work in the AM I could see it rolling in. 


This was six days ago. 

JakeCK

ChrisJ said:

If you have a legitimate health concern maybe you shouldn't be playing with box fans and cardboard and invest in proper equipment to handle those concerns?

Except these actually work better then those hepa filters. And not everyone can afford to spend thousands on filtration. Get off your high horse. 

ChrisJ

JakeCK said:

ChrisJ said:

If you have a legitimate health concern maybe you shouldn't be playing with box fans and cardboard and invest in proper equipment to handle those concerns?

Except these actually work better then those hepa filters. And not everyone can afford to spend thousands on filtration. Get off your high horse. 

I like my high horse.
It's easier to see from up here.


I knew about the smoke issue well over a week ago, long before it reached NYC.
Your local news wasn't talking about it?

JakeCK

ChrisJ said:

ChrisJ said:

If you have a legitimate health concern maybe you shouldn't be playing with box fans and cardboard and invest in proper equipment to handle those concerns?

Except these actually work better then those hepa filters. And not everyone can afford to spend thousands on filtration. Get off your high horse. 

I like my high horse. It's easier to see from up here. I knew about the smoke issue well over a week ago, long before it reached NYC. Your local news wasn't talking about it?

Reread what I said, national news.

ChrisJ

@Erin Holohan Haskell
Why every time I quote someone that quoted someone before them, the last quote (the one I'm quoting) gets mixed in with my response rather than it being in the shaded quoted area?

ChrisJ

JakeCK said:

ChrisJ said:

JakeCK said:

ChrisJ said:

If you have a legitimate health concern maybe you shouldn't be playing with box fans and cardboard and invest in proper equipment to handle those concerns?

Except these actually work better then those hepa filters. And not everyone can afford to spend thousands on filtration. Get off your high horse. 

I like my high horse.
It's easier to see from up here.


I knew about the smoke issue well over a week ago, long before it reached NYC.
Your local news wasn't talking about it?

Reread what I said, national news.


Oh I don't know.
You know how it is......

JakeCK

Mad Dog_2 said:

I got asthma & bad allergies but there's nothing I can do about it.  Was this an intentional 🔥 fire?  Thats what I heard.  How many acres it burn so far?  Where in Canada 🇨🇦 did it start ?  Mad Dog 🐕 

I do not know if any were intentional. But it isn't just one fire it's like a dozen spread out over a large area. Probably lightening. It's just been so hot and dry that fire season started early and is unusually bad. Here in Ohio we haven't had a drop of rain in 19-20 days now. We're finally showing some this weekend but from the looks of it, it'll be more of a tinkle.

I do have allergies, but luckily no asthma. But I have a few friends who have it bad. You wouldn't catch them dead(or maybe you would 💀?) with out their inhaler. If a hundred bucks and 10 minutes can give just one person who's been struggling with this smoke a good night of sleep the time spent typing this post is worth it despite the naysaying contrarian.

jumper

Our fathers could bomb the blazes out of Germany & Japan but we cannot snuff out forest fires? Aeroplane spotters (drones perhaps) ought to detect young little blazes; then give 'em the works. I'm neither smart nor wise but the world missed an opportunity when it failed to crown me Pharoah when I was in my prime.

ChrisJ

jumper said:

Our fathers could bomb the blazes out of Germany & Japan but we cannot snuff out forest fires? Aeroplane spotters (drones perhaps) ought to detect young little blazes; then give 'em the works. I'm neither smart nor wise but the world missed an opportunity when it failed to crown me Pharoah when I was in my prime.

You do understand you're talking about two completely different things right?

CLamb

I made a Corsi-Rosenthal box for my house. It works well. However, I've found that noise and air flow varies considerably between brands of box fans.

JakeCK

CLamb said:

I made a Corsi-Rosenthal box for my house. It works well. However, I've found that noise and air flow varies considerably between brands of box fans.

Yes they do. lasko fans are garbage. I have two of those. The utilitech however pushes a lot more air and is less noisy. It also just feels better designed. Utilitech also provides actual CFM numbers, I don't think lasko does.

ChrisJ

JakeCK said:

CLamb said:

I made a Corsi-Rosenthal box for my house. It works well. However, I've found that noise and air flow varies considerably between brands of box fans.

Yes they do. lasko fans are garbage. I have two of those. The utilitech however pushes a lot more air and is less noisy. It also just feels better designed. Utilitech also provides actual CFM numbers, I don't think lasko does.

Try a Lakewood P-25 with the metal 3 blade propeller.
Of course, propeller fans push better than they pull so you'll also do better blowing into the filters rather than trying to create a vacuum with the fan.

jumper

ChrisJ said:

jumper said:

Our fathers could bomb the blazes out of Germany & Japan but we cannot snuff out forest fires? .

You do understand you're talking about two completely different things right?

Check out the numbers: do some arithmetic

ChrisJ

jumper said:

Our fathers could bomb the blazes out of Germany & Japan but we cannot snuff out forest fires? .

You do understand you're talking about two completely different things right?

Check out the numbers: do some arithmetic

Ok please supply the numbers you're using so we can compare apples to apples.

Mad Dog_2

Air is fine on Queens/ Nassau Border Chris!  Fresh air again! Mad Dog  🐕 

JakeCK

I just got another air quality alert this morning in Cleveland.

pecmsg

Major improvements 
Wednesday morning

This morning 

Dave Carpentier

jumper said:

Our fathers could bomb the blazes out of Germany & Japan but we cannot snuff out forest fires? Aeroplane spotters (drones perhaps) ought to detect young little blazes; then give 'em the works.

Fires are all spotted fairly quickly via satellite and plane.
The problem is the boreal forest. Its going to burn eventually.
Limited or no access in the middle of nowhere (northern quebec), lots of coniferous.
Water bombing is a thing, but the pace of fire growth especially with wind, would be a lot of flights.
In the end, when you put it out, you *still* have old ready-to-burn trees that are going to burn at some point, come heck or high water. (well, I guess high water could help..)

If it wasnt for the stubborn weather system causing all this smoke to glob up along the east, it would be blowing out to sea over Labrador etc.
When I saw that NYC and other big centres were going to get plastered, I thought.. omg this is all we need to further hack apart our collective economic futures.

FStephenMasek

Good excuse for you-all to come visit California. Please let me know if you are coming out and I'll arrange to visit some boiler rooms.

ChrisJ

FStephenMasek said:

Good excuse for you-all to come visit California. Please let me know if you are coming out and I'll arrange to visit some boiler rooms.

I'm not sure there's ever a good reason to visit California 

PC7060

pecmsg said:

Major improvements 
Wednesday morning

This morning 

You have much better views than me!

jumper

I like Dave Carpentier's post but are the Quebec fires farther away than Dresden from UK? Certainly American bombers flew farther in Pacific. Key is to be ready to bomb when fires are small. Drone bombers fueled and charged up with dry ice? How to keep fuel warm and dry ice cold? Make the fuel LNG and then house the drones in freezers.

The problem is the boreal forest. Its going to burn eventually.
Limited or no access in the middle of nowhere (northern quebec), lots of coniferous.

Dave Carpentier

@jumper - But thats the catch. The wood doesnt stop getting old and dead. We would be back to put it all out again in a year or two. Each time you put it out, the size of the fuel load increases.
Fire is one of Mother Nature's reset buttons to get rid of the old and dead woods and allow new ones to grow in the reduced canopy.
Controlled burning plans can be effective but that attracts some complaints, and probably wouldnt be used out in the middle of nowhere.

I should stop referring to it as middle of nowhere.. there are indeed villages etc in the fire zone. See sites like firesmoke.ca and zoom in.

jumper

@Dave Carpentier Small fraction of $$$ allotted for clean energy pays forest rangers to thin out bush. Forest fires donate tons of CO2 to atmosphere. Envirowhacko s say that burn is okay because burn is natural.

ratio

jumper said:

@Dave Carpentier Small fraction of $$$ allotted for clean energy pays forest rangers to thin out bush. Forest fires donate tons of CO2 to atmosphere. Envirowhacko s say that burn is okay because burn is natural.

Burn has to be ok, because no way will a "small fraction of $$$" be enough to manage to it. I rather suspect that ALL the $$$ allotted to clean energy couldn't pay for it; but I may be misjudging how lucrative clean energy is.

Canucker

ratio said:

@Dave Carpentier Small fraction of $$$ allotted for clean energy pays forest rangers to thin out bush. Forest fires donate tons of CO2 to atmosphere. Envirowhacko s say that burn is okay because burn is natural.

Burn has to be ok, because no way will a "small fraction of $$$" be enough to manage to it. I rather suspect that ALL the $$$ allotted to clean energy couldn't pay for it; but I may be misjudging how lucrative clean energy is.

We could include the money allotted to the fossil fuel industry too. That might be enough to cover it

DanHolohan

@jumper Trees are carbon-neutral. When they burn, they put back into the atmosphere the carbon they took out of the atmosphere by growing. If they die naturally and rot on the ground, they put back into the atmosphere the same amount that they took out. The problem is time. Burning causes the release of carbon so much faster than rotting will. That's what we're seeing this week, but the trees themselves are not making more carbon.

jumper

So obvious method to reduce atmospheric CO2 is to harvest wood and then bury it so deep that carbon dioxide will be sequestered for our lifetimes. Stop recycling and start burying. Envirowhacko s want issues not solutions.

DanHolohan said:

@jumper Trees are carbon-neutral. When they burn, they put back into the atmosphere the carbon they took out of the atmosphere by growing. If they die naturally and rot on the ground, they put back into the atmosphere the same amount that they took out. The problem is time. Burning causes the release of carbon so much faster than rotting will. That's what we're seeing this week, but the trees themselves are not making more carbon.

DanHolohan

Trees breath in carbon dioxide and breath out oxygen, as do most plants. Without plants, we die. A good book to read is Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmel. 

Sal Santamaura

ChrisJ said:

FStephenMasek said:

Good excuse for you-all to come visit California. Please let me know if you are coming out and I'll arrange to visit some boiler rooms.

I'm not sure there's ever a good reason to visit California 

There are many good reasons to visit here. However, please skip the vacation and, even more importantly, don't get any ideas after watching sunny skies and shirt-sleeve crowds at the Rose Bowl / Rose Parade, when it's snowing a blizzard where many are, about moving here. We've got more than enough humans in this state already.

PS The air quality has been much better in southern California this year than in a long time. Enjoy the smoke!

ratio

jumper said:

So obvious method to reduce atmospheric CO2 is to harvest wood and then bury it so deep that carbon dioxide will be sequestered for our lifetimes. Stop recycling and start burying.

Hmmmm. Wouldn't that make...coal?

The truth is, aside from some nuclear physics experiments & possibly some bombs, nothing we do makes more carbon. All we can do is change the distribution, faster than it would without our help.

Envirowhacko s want issues not solutions.

There seems to be quite a lot of this going around, not just with the Envirowhackos.