It's wildfire season in California - looking for advice on serious filters.

[luke80]

Hey, I'm Luke, I'm in the San Francisco bay area, and I've got a resmed airsense 10 and a resmed airmini

You remember those big wildfires in California when everyone was wearing masks? Yeah, so if you remember, it was nigh impossible to buy a reasonable respirator during that time, but I did buy both respirators and air quality monitoring equipment when it was over; lesson being that you want to have such things setup ahead of time.

So, uh this question is mostly about "what happens next time?" - Wildfire season is upon us again. While I'm awake, I've got an array of respirators and cartridges; should we have another air quality disaster, I'm covered during the day and have enough to give friends, at least if it's another one where particulates are the issue. But for night? For night I just have my CPAP filter. And yeah, I replace them regularly, but... I suspect they don't meet the 'p100' standard I look for in a particulate respirator; I don't think I want to sleep with a respirator, either; that'd be the opposite of a CPAP.

For that matter, I wonder if I'd benefit in general from having air filtration; I can tell you that when someone cooks in my house (neither of us is skilled at cooking) my air quality meters complain of 'high TVOC' - and certainly, one can buy cartridges that filter volatile organic compounds.


So, my question here is just has anyone rigged their cpap inlet to accept 3m cartridges or something? Is that a crazy idea? would the increased resistance make the CPAP not work right? Would it be better to spring for the PAPR system and rig *that* to the CPAP, creating a positive pressure system all the way down? I mean, the engineering of the positive pressure system is way lower calorie.

[Goofproof]

Move to a State with less trees and brush, and more rain. Jim

[palerider]

So, my question here is just has anyone rigged their cpap inlet to accept 3m cartridges or something? Is that a crazy idea? would the increased resistance make the CPAP not work right? Would it be better to spring for the PAPR system and rig *that* to the CPAP, creating a positive pressure system all the way down? I mean, the engineering of the positive pressure system is way lower calorie.

The only easy thing I can think of is the antibacterial filters that go in the hose.

Don't know what their 'p' rating might be.

I do remember at least one person that was taping a P100 filter over the intake side of their air10 machine last year.

[chunkyfrog]

Some time back, a poster had put his cpap in a box, with HEPA filters on the side.
Replace all filters before needed--even they cost mucho dinero.

[bjhunt01]

Get a good air purifier with HEPA and charcoal filters and place it next to the bed. Mine is an Oransi Max. I love it. They come in various sizes for various square feet. Research well and understand how they work before you buy because the famous Dyson is pretty sorry. Mine has an ozone thingy but you can turn it off. It must be really difficult to deal with this. Best!

[Janknitz]

I live in Santa Rosa, so we got the brunt of it the year of our fires and last year it was almost worse from the Paradise fires (maybe because we were evacuated during the worst of our own fires). I bought a pack of 52 CPAP filters, and sometimes changed them DAILY. Seems to me that the bacterial filters would get expensive--they clog easily and you'd be replacing them constantly.

It wasn't enough. I had terrible respiratory issues this winter, and my doctor said that almost everyone in our county with asthma had the same.

As for me, I've purchased cloth masks with replaceable R95 filters to wear if we have air quality issues again. I couldn't stand the hardware store brands--they crawl into my eye and it hurts, so I didn't wear them enough. Even the cloth ones are miserable, just not quite as miserable to wear.

I also keep a mask set at my office because I can no longer sit with clients reeking of perfume or cigarette smoke. It was some heavy smokers that set me into a downward spiral this winter that almost killed my business because I couldn't work for weeks. If it hadn't been for two years of really bad air quality it might not have been so bad, but I'm not taking any more chances.

[ChicagoGranny]

What about getting a good room air filtration system for your bedroom? https://www.google.com/search?q=room+ai ... e&ie=UTF-8

[luke80]

Get a good air purifier with HEPA and charcoal filters and place it next to the bed. Mine is an Oransi Max. I love it. They come in various sizes for various square feet. Research well and understand how they work before you buy because the famous Dyson is pretty sorry. Mine has an ozone thingy but you can turn it off. It must be really difficult to deal with this. Best!

I've done that. I mean, I have a major brand air purifier with a charcoal prefilter and a HEPA filter in my bedroom by my CPAP; the nook my bed is in is rather smaller than what the thing is recommended for, and I replace the filters as recommended (as well as the cpap filters) but my air quality meter (a 'laser egg' - no idea if this is serious) still registers, for instance, high levels of volatile organic compounds after someone cooks something. (unfortunately, I didn't get this setup before the fires passed, so I can't tell you how effective my bedroom air purifier is for PM2.5 particulates. I mean, I have meters, but pm2.5 levels are pretty low in general now so it's not clear if my system is filtering or not.) - I mean, maybe I just need a more aggressive charcoal prefilter, but I'd really like something certified.

Part of the problem is that most of the room filters are, ah, 'consumer grade' - meaning they don't seem to have the same ratings that industrial gear has. Like, if you want to filter something, 3m has a respirator cartridge that meets OSHA requirements for the thing, and you can usually trust both OSHA to make reasonable requirements and 3m to meet those requirements. Consumer grade filters seem less regulated and therefore less trustable.

The other part of the problem, and why I don't want to get an industrial room air filter is that serious filters are expensive... like my understanding is that if I want to filter 'volatile organic compounds' - 3m has a filter cartridge for me, but it's not cheap, meaning that I'm better off filtering less air than filtering more air. (of course, this is mostly an issue if I want to use it every night; if I'm only concerned about declared emergencies, then I'm much less price sensitive when it comes to the filters, just 'cause I'm not going to be using many of them.) For that matter, filters that claim to do anything vs. PM 2.5 are not at all cheap.

[luke80]

I live in Santa Rosa, so we got the brunt of it the year of our fires and last year it was almost worse from the Paradise fires (maybe because we were evacuated during the worst of our own fires). I bought a pack of 52 CPAP filters, and sometimes changed them DAILY. Seems to me that the bacterial filters would get expensive--they clog easily and you'd be replacing them constantly.

It wasn't enough. I had terrible respiratory issues this winter, and my doctor said that almost everyone in our county with asthma had the same.

As for me, I've purchased cloth masks with replaceable R95 filters to wear if we have air quality issues again. I couldn't stand the hardware store brands--they crawl into my eye and it hurts, so I didn't wear them enough. Even the cloth ones are miserable, just not quite as miserable to wear.

I also keep a mask set at my office because I can no longer sit with clients reeking of perfume or cigarette smoke. It was some heavy smokers that set me into a downward spiral this winter that almost killed my business because I couldn't work for weeks. If it hadn't been for two years of really bad air quality it might not have been so bad, but I'm not taking any more chances.

Yeah, this is the argument I see for rigging up something serious for my CPAP. I mean, in public, I'm going to breath a lot of crap and there's a big social cost to wearing a mask. But at night? I'm already doing the hard part, e.g. wearing a mask, so I kinda think I might as well rig up something to the CPAP, as I'm paying the expensive social cost already. (I mean, my big problem mostly isn't perfume, it's burned food smells or plastic/rubber/project smells. An engineer and a technician sharing a small apartment, when neither of us is any good at cooking, but both of us try, and both of us have smelly projects... so, uh, yeah.)

Comfort is the other reason to just go for the PAPR solution. I mean, a good PAPR respirator system is expensive, and filters are expensive on top of that, (and it does pull rather more air than a respirator, so you will have to replace it more often than a respirator filter) but it is super comfortable and meant for wearing all day while working.

I mean, I have the 3m 7000 series respirators right now, and they are pretty okay comfort wise, though the standards of grooming are kinda rough for me. a PAPR forced air setup solves all those problems and makes the mask way more comfortable. (I think it might make it seem less intimidating, too? I mean, your whole face is behind a clear face shield but people can see your whole face; while with a half-face respirator, your identity is concealed, and that makes people uncomfortable.)

I should do some research on how likely we are to have another air quality event like that in the next decade. I mean, if I know we're getting another like this, the two grand on a nice PAPR setup is a good deal even if I only use it during that one disaster, and any use I get out of it during the rest of the time is a bonus.

[Janknitz]

I had a dental appointment the day the Paradise fire started. I went out to my car and it was a beautiful day. But then I looked Northeast and saw a wall of smoke coming at me. It looked like the fire was in Santa Rosa again. I was in a panic. I had to get in my car and google to find out where the fire was and I was shocked it was coming from Paradise 180 miles away. By the time I left the dentist an hour later, our entire town was engulfed in smoke and it was as bad as during our local fires. I stopped at a hardware store on the way back to the office to buy a mask, because then I wasn't carrying one in the car or office. The air quality remained bad here for weeks. In SF I think it was somewhat better, the offshore breeze finally helped.

The local paper is full of reports of findings of high mercury levels in the firefighters, and probably in all of us, too, but they haven't tested civilians (yet).

I think there's a very good chance that there will be more fires affecting our air quality in a few months. It seems to be inevitable now. Although we were grateful for the winter rains that eradicated drought conditions (for the time being), what they also did was cause a lot of underbrush growth, and that raises, not lowers the fire hazard as our summer quickly dries it all out. I worry that the parts that didn't burn in 2017 are ripe for fires yet to be. Just one more thing to keep me awake at night.

Or the "big one" (earthquake) here, could set us all on fire too.

[tyrinryan]

I bought some "hepa" labled filters on line--- fits both resmed s9 and airsense 10. They have a plastic-ee coating on one side (exit side). Machine seems to work ok.

[palerider]

I bought some "hepa" labled filters on line--- fits both resmed s9 and airsense 10. They have a plastic-ee coating on one side (exit side). Machine seems to work ok.

The lied. *NOT* "HEPA".

[Gryphon]

This has me thinking again about the anoying issue that the cpap manufacturers dont use an air intake that can be modified. I've seen the cool filter units you can get for oxygen concentrators small opening intonanlarge pleated hepa filter. For alergy suffers and especially when air quality can't be controlled having a filter on our machines that's serious and filters just about everything would be a far cry better then the basic filtration we have on most of our machines now.

It's like the use of the basic blue floss filters for a central air con system for your house. The blue floss filter is there to protect your air con system from damage not your lungs, the more exspensive pleated filters, filter way more from the air and help with the small gunk in the air, but you have to be way more careful about changing them regularly or risk damage to your air conditioner. There tradeoffs but I wish we had the option.

If you can get a large airtight container like a tupaware bin, you could cut a 12" x 12" hole in the lid, then cut a hole for your cpap hose and electrical wire, then stuff the smaller hole with some moldable foam to make it so only the air that gets to the cpap comes from the filter.

Maybe we should start a company. A filter box for our CPAP sounds like a hell of a better product then the no clean.

Restwell,

Gryphon

[bjhunt01]

Get a good air purifier with HEPA and charcoal filters and place it next to the bed. Mine is an Oransi Max. I love it. They come in various sizes for various square feet. Research well and understand how they work before you buy because the famous Dyson is pretty sorry. Mine has an ozone thingy but you can turn it off. It must be really difficult to deal with this. Best!

I've done that. I mean, I have a major brand air purifier with a charcoal prefilter and a HEPA filter in my bedroom by my CPAP; the nook my bed is in is rather smaller than what the thing is recommended for, and I replace the filters as recommended (as well as the cpap filters) but my air quality meter (a 'laser egg' - no idea if this is serious) still registers, for instance, high levels of volatile organic compounds after someone cooks something. (unfortunately, I didn't get this setup before the fires passed, so I can't tell you how effective my bedroom air purifier is for PM2.5 particulates. I mean, I have meters, but pm2.5 levels are pretty low in general now so it's not clear if my system is filtering or not.) - I mean, maybe I just need a more aggressive charcoal prefilter, but I'd really like something certified.

Part of the problem is that most of the room filters are, ah, 'consumer grade' - meaning they don't seem to have the same ratings that industrial gear has. Like, if you want to filter something, 3m has a respirator cartridge that meets OSHA requirements for the thing, and you can usually trust both OSHA to make reasonable requirements and 3m to meet those requirements. Consumer grade filters seem less regulated and therefore less trustable.

The other part of the problem, and why I don't want to get an industrial room air filter is that serious filters are expensive... like my understanding is that if I want to filter 'volatile organic compounds' - 3m has a filter cartridge for me, but it's not cheap, meaning that I'm better off filtering less air than filtering more air. (of course, this is mostly an issue if I want to use it every night; if I'm only concerned about declared emergencies, then I'm much less price sensitive when it comes to the filters, just 'cause I'm not going to be using many of them.) For that matter, filters that claim to do anything vs. PM 2.5 are not at all cheap.

FYI: https://homeairguides.com/reviews/best- ... est-fires/

[Gryphon]

PS: I did some digging and found a link to this...

https://pqltd.blogspot.com/2014/01/add- ... 0.html?m=1

It looks like an interesting idea especially as a short term solution during an air quality emergency.

Others can take a peek and weigh in on if it's a great idea or not.


Best of luck,

Gryphon