Yes, I've watched the news and have been to several places in the west even several years after the fires swept through. Devastating. It's all so far away from here that it's hard for some to realize the true impact from just the reports since such fires are rare here. This hit home for many with the recent fire in the mountains that wiped out businesses, homes, and people in and around Gatlinburg.
JKJ
I hate to bring this thread back on topic, but I recently received the Dylos DC1700 for my basement shop and was a bit disappointed at the high readings I was seeing after letting it run for a week in the Monitor mode (one-minute sample every hour). I have not done anything in my shop for over a month, and the readings were 1251 for greater than 0.5 microns and 128 for greater than 2.5 microns. According to the Dylos manual, this is bad.
I normally leave my shop door open when I'm not using it, but for the next test I kept it closed. I turned on my Record Power AC400 air cleaner for four hours and checked the readings the next day. They were 102 and 10, which makes me breath easier. I kept the shop door closed for several days, and the readings didn't change.
I then opened the shop door, as I normally do, and after three days, the readings are 475 and 39. I suspect they will continue to climb if I leave the shop door open, so I'll start closing it so my house doesn't contaminate my shop.
My conclusion is my air filter is doing a great job and keeping the door closed helps. The real test will be when I start using the shop again.
Mike, thanks for keeping us “on topic”. When I read the beginning of your post I thought you were going to say you thought your meter was defective or not accurate. Sounds like that’s not the case but perhaps the air quality in your house is not so good? If so, are you going to take any steps to improve it?
I ask because my wife has allergies that are getting worse as time goes by, and if I get a Dylos meter I would know if indoor air quality might be an issue. If so I would need to work on it and I would be interested to know what steps others have had success with.
Has anyone used their Dylos to improve the air quality in your home as well as your shop? What steps actually helped?
Thanks!😎
At first I thought it was defective because I couldn't understand why the particle count was so high when I had not done anything in the shop for so long. It wasn't until after I ran the air filter that I was confident the Dylos was working properly.
You ask a good question about the rest of the house. The newer houses here are well insulated and very air tight, so much so that we have to open windows every day to allow the house to cross ventilate and remove moisture. I'll put the Dylos in different areas of the house and let it run for a few days to see if the measurements vary.
Unfortunately, the Dylos doesn't discriminate between the different sources of stuff. A particle is a particle, and it's up to the user to determine the source and risk. I've only seen three other air quality sensors in use here, with one in a house and the other two for environmental health inspections at work. The work related inspections were to verify the HEPA filters were working during the height of the pollen season.
I did,
I buy a Dylos initialy to check my indoor air quality and if the HVAC or fans were running non stop with filtrete MPR 2000 filters or higher the reading were in the low 200 and 30 as @Mike got. However, reading went up to the 500/70, if the HVAC or fans were off.
So in my case, very high filtration filters was the solution. Keep in mind the home was two years old, so mostly brand new home.
To make better sense of the Dylos numbers I recast them as Air Quality Index (AQI) numbers. That way the particulate level can be compared to established standards rather than just other Dylos units. To do that, first use the Dylos method referenced by Bill Pentz to estimate the PM2.5 values. Use those values to look up the AQI in this table.
For your 200/30 values this method yields an AQI of 7. For 500/70 The AQI is 18. The "Good" range for AQI is 0 to 50.
Using the above method 1251/128 gives an AQI of 47, still "Good" but getting close to the "Moderate" category.
Mike, you should be able to switch the DC1700 display between count and mass densities. It would be interesting to see both sets of readings.
Beranek's Law:
It has been remarked that if one selects his own components, builds his own enclosure, and is convinced he has made a wise choice of design, then his own loudspeaker sounds better to him than does anyone else's loudspeaker. In this case, the frequency response of the loudspeaker seems to play only a minor part in forming a person's opinion.
L.L. Beranek, Acoustics (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1954), p.208.
Thanks for all your responses- good information for all!
For kicks, I put both my large and small Jet Air Cleaners on full for a few hours and didn't generate any sawdust. The readings got down to 25 for small particles, and 1 for large particles. Gotta be near "Clean Room" levels.
So kudos to the Dylos, but real appreciation for the Jet Air Cleaners.
- After I ask a stranger if I can pet their dog and they say yes, I like to respond, "I'll keep that in mind" and walk off
- It's above my pay grade. Mongo only pawn in game of life.
I don't understand those both here and on other forums who say air cleaners like the Jet are a waste of money. My experience is like yours, but I never got the air quite that clean. The air cleaners are perfect for when you can leave and let it run for a while. The built-in timer is great for that, I wonder if they all have timers.
Unfortunately there wasn’t enough interest to put a group buy together so I bought my own Dylos DC1100 pro and started some testing inside my house. Built in 2000, frame & stucco, 2 AC/heat pumps- one for each side of the house.
I set up in the living room where we watch TV and hang out. I only recorded values for small particles as that is what concerns me. Counts started in the area of 150 during afternoon hours and climbed as high as 750 between midnight and 8:00 AM when we were asleep.
The next day at 1:00 PM I turned both A/C fans on to run continuously to circulate the air. The count dropped from 380 to 65 after about an hour and stayed in that area. Turned the A/C fans off overnight and the count ranged from 60 to 90.
The following morning I installed a Filtrete 1900 MPR filter in each air return. Set both A/C fans to run and the reading dropped to “5” after about 20 minutes! It remained under 10 all day. Overnight it ranged from 28 to 92 with no fans running.
Looks like the house is sealed fairly well and the counts drop when the A/C is running. For several years I have been using washable electrostatic filters which apparently worked pretty well. Clearly the Filtrete 1900 MPR filters work very well- for now, I’m done inside the house.
On to the workshop- stay tuned for those numbers!
I looked into the Filtrete 1900 MPR out of curiosity a few days ago. They don't come in many of the sizes needed for my house, so bummer there. Also, doesn't seem to have the proper size for the Jet Air Cleaners, but putting good filters there always helps, and I put filters with activated charcoal on my Jet units, which helps with chemical fumes too.
- After I ask a stranger if I can pet their dog and they say yes, I like to respond, "I'll keep that in mind" and walk off
- It's above my pay grade. Mongo only pawn in game of life.