Air cleaners for west coast fires?

[Drew Bernat]

Oh, the air outside is frightful, but the woodworking's so delightful...

For years I've gotten by with a dust collector and periodically wiping up the fine dust that eventually coats all surfaces. This year is particularly bad, though, and the far side of my shop (all 20' away) is lost in a haze of smoke. This got me looking at commercial air cleaners; Woodcraft currently has a Jet model on sale, and Grizzly has a selection of options as well. Unfortunately, I can't find any recent reviews of any models - a search online is lost in a spew of "my totally trusted review site" with bad grammar and Amazon referral links.

Is anyone using an air cleaner to combat the smoke? Does it work? If so, do you have a preferred model?

[Rege Sullivan]

I'm using .3 micron canister filters on both my dust collector and an 1000 cfm home built air filter. These do a great job keeping wood dust under control but don't do much for smoke. It does clear smoke from the air (can't see it) but you can still smell it. I suspect it only gets the largest smoke particals. I think you might look into something like a Blue OX 1100 High Performance Smoke Eater. I've seen these used in private clubs where smoking is allowed and they seem to take away the visible cigarette smoke pretty quickly and nearly all the odor. I looked at Blue Ox a few years ago to handle some kitchen odors. At around $1500 bucks I didn't think the price was bad but it was a bit to large to fit in a home kitchen.

[johnny means]

The problem is that smoke is made up of larger particles and all types of gases and vapors. It's like trying to filter pond water through a sock. You may catch a lot of the algae and mosquito larvae, but it's still going to taste like pond water. Worse yet, it might just seem clean enough that you drink a little, not realizing that all the bacteria is still there.

[Frank Pratt]

I'm using .3 micron canister filters on both my dust collector and an 1000 cfm home built air filter. These do a great job keeping wood dust under control but don't do much for smoke. It does clear smoke from the air (can't see it) but you can still smell it. I suspect it only gets the largest smoke particals. I think you might look into something like a Blue OX 1100 High Performance Smoke Eater. I've seen these used in private clubs where smoking is allowed and they seem to take away the visible cigarette smoke pretty quickly and nearly all the odor. I looked at Blue Ox a few years ago to handle some kitchen odors. At around $1500 bucks I didn't think the price was bad but it was a bit to large to fit in a home kitchen.

A HEPA filter (99.97% down to .3 micron) l will remove smoke particulates, but not the gasses that stink. Not sure what will get rid of that, other than a carbon filter.

[Bill Dufour]

For right now I take off my cars air filter and shake it clean, tap it, once a week or so as long as I am seeing ashes on the vehicles. I will replace them, when this tapers off. They are supposed to be replaced every few years. Normally I do it before. a smog check.
Bil lD

[Randall J Cox]

Its really been bad here, the other day it looked like snow, white ash floating down on everything. We live up close to the foothills in the central Calif valley that lead to the Sierra Nevada mountains, fires all over the place. Hard to even know where the sun is.... I have 3 hepa filters in use in my small shop (Fein shopvac, Powermatic 2hp system piped from machines and Jet overhead box), don't think they will do anything for smoke. I just stay in the house for now. What a mess this state has become. Randy

[mike stenson]

This was sunrise Saturday, in Tucson. It's unretouched (other than color balanced), this is about half as smokey as when we had a fire a couple miles from us in July. I'm about 500 miles from the closest fire, about 900 from the bulk in CA. I'm not sure if a shop air cleaner could keep up. The pictures my friends are sharing from the bay area and in Portland are insane.

https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-vZVwBsK/0/6beef5f8/L/i-vZVwBsK-L.jpg

btw, the picture's really about the only way I can adequately describe just how far the smoke has travelled.

[Adam Herman]

https://www.staples.com/honeywell-quietclean-tower-air-purifier-with-permanent-filters-hwlhfd230bv1/product_HWLHFD230BV1?cid=PS:GooglePLAs:HWLHFD230BV 1&ci_src=17588969&ci_sku=HWLHFD230BV1&KPID=HWLHFD230BV1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwqfz6BRD8ARIsAIXQCf1FWRbI2EXofWHAUZk2 cZsJnJ-1-nRR1IYCMTAf5teatL3vK_gJZM8aAl9xEALw_wcB

name: Honeywell QuietClean® Tower Air Purifier with Permanent Filters (HWLHFD230BV1)


we have 2 of these, one in the family room and one in our bedroom. the filters are washable and while not certified as hepa, they rely of electostatic filters that are quite efficient and washable. every time i wash them, the water turns a black/green color so they are working. i have also seen a dramatic decrease in days where my dust/pollen allergies are bad.

we have had some heavy smoke days from 2 of colorado's largest ever fires this year, we are not too far from the Cameron peak fire. and have found these to work great. they have several models with the same filters.

[Brian Tymchak]

...the picture's really about the only way I can adequately describe just how far the smoke has travelled.

The weather guy mentioned yesterday that our sunsets here in central OH are more colorful (red) due to smoke fron the west coast fires.

[Andy D Jones]

Getting air you can see through is a lot easier than getting air that does not smell smoky. Our sense of smell (which hardly compares with many other animals') is capable of sensing parts per million and parts per billion concentrations, depending on the chemical. It takes far more than a particle filter to get the smell out. Activated carbon and other materials/processes that work at the molecular level are used for that.

The capability of sensing organic chemicals in our environment goes WAY back in our evolutionary past, even to microscopic organisms in the primordial soup.

Chemicals were the among the first forms of primitive communication between animals (and, for all we know, plants.) Being able to recognize one's own species (or even parent/child), food, prey/predator, etc. by chemical signatures existed long before other senses, and is still relied upon today (e.g. a cow recognizes her own calf, and vice-versa, by smell, over sight and/or sound).

Thus, it is often smells which trigger our longest-lost memories, since the ability to recognize and associate a smell with a memory (good or bad) also existed far back in our evolutionary past, in the earliest functions of what evolved into brains.

-- Andy - Arlington TX

[David L Morse]

That's an interesting question, interesting enough to do some tests. A few months ago a thread here prompted me to redo some testing I had done a number of years ago on the cheap box fan/furnace filter hack. Net result was I ended up with two cheap box fans with MERV 12 filters in my shop. So, I burned some newspaper in the shop and then turned on the fans and recorded particulate levels for a while.
441110
(the X axis is minutes after midnight)

The PM2.5 levels are probably the most representative of total smoke. The time constant for the exponential decrease in PM 2.5 is 20 minutes. With my 6000 cubic foot shop that translates to an effective clean air flow of 300 CFM or about 150 CFM per fan. Not great but still effective. That 150 CFM is roughly equivalent to the AHAM CADR rating.

Here are the particle counts you would get with a Dylos:
441111

I just checked the numbers and after two hours of running the fans my PM numbers are all 0 and the Dylos equivalent is 11/0. Of course I have no smoke infiltration so you wouldn't get the same numbers in Portland!

[Michael W. Clark]

Smoke is very fine, usually in the 0.1 to 1 micron size. Most welding fume collectors that primarily filter smoke use a very good cartridge filter. Even with this, you may not get the "smell" as that is vapors and requires a different technology.

[Ben Ellenberger]

We used rental HEPA filters at our office during a big fire two years ago. They made a quick and measurable difference in our indoor air quality. You really want filters that get particulates smaller than 2.5 microns, so HEPA filters.

Be very careful of anything that is advertised as “ionizing”. There were a bunch of ozone generators marketed as indoor air purifiers a few years back. Ozone is actually a pollutant, but it masks your sense of smell. https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/ozone-generators-are-sold-air-cleaners

[Alan Lightstone]

I just saw a review on my phone for these. I think it was reviewed.com.

They said that many of these units have either sold out or are selling like hotcakes because of the fires. :mad:

I really like my Iomega HEPA unit, but I don't have to deal with smoke.

[Eugene Dixon]

Check out Matt Risinger's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYedx7bo0tw

[Jack Frederick]

I’m in Nevada City in the foothills. We were evacuated a couple weeks ago, but the winds stayed down and they were able to get our local fire knocked down. That was the beginning of this smoke cycle here, and unfortunately for so many East of us. A friend in Truro, MA, out On the tip of the Cape, posted a pic of her red sunset From our western fires. We mostly stay inside and use the purple air app for AQ index. 150 is unhealthy. We got up to 580 last week. Most days we cannot smell the smoke. You can see the smoke, but not pick up the odor. I have to go outside now and rake some leaves. It is comforting knowing that is the solution!!!

[Andy D Jones]

The human sense of smell is time- and exposure-relative. Once you have been exposed to smoke (or most any odor) for a while, you don't smell it as much, until you are not exposed for a while, and then exposed again.

-- Andy - Arlington TX