Brooke BinkowskiPSA from a southern Californian: Your N95s and KN95s (and even your cloth masks to a certain extent) will help a lot against wildfire smoke. Stay safe out there, friends.
I just realized I have some expertise here that might help if you have questions you need answered. I was a breaking news reporter for a billion years and around here that means covering a lot of wildfires up close and personal (without proper gear, but I digress.) As a highly curious environmental and indigenous rights reporter I learned a lot of fire science as well. If you have questions about how to deal with an ugly fire season I can try to answer them as best as I can.
Also those Corsi-Rosenthal boxes are supposed to be excellent but I haven't tried them out. I do use air filters when things get exceptionally bad, and humidifiers can help too, at least around here where humidity can get so low that it sucks all the moisture out of your eyes and nose
Texan_Reverend@brooklynmarie As someone in Washington, I can personally attest to the value of a Corsi-Rosenthal Box. The 4-filter version with a box fan on top will clean more air per minute than any consumer HEPA air purifier from Amazon or WalMart.
The best filters are Filtrete 1900 from Amazon, Target, WalMart, Lowes, etc. 20" wide is needed to form a box that fits a box fan on top, but any height works; 30" will give you the longest lasting filters.
Here are video & photo guides:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw7fUMhNov8
The best filters are Filtrete 1900 from Amazon, Target, WalMart, Lowes, etc. 20" wide is needed to form a box that fits a box fan on top, but any height works; 30" will give you the longest lasting filters.
Here are video & photo guides:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw7fUMhNov8
AJ Fidalgo (voice actor)I built a #CorsiRosenthalBox last year and it's been great for situations where we need better-than-normal air circulation in the house. Like today, when the smoke from Canada is making the air pollution levels intolerable.
My CR Box has five filters, I put one on the bottom too.
@MrF @brooklynmarie That's excellent! I really like the cardboard reinforcement on the sides. If you were to add a tape or cardboard shroud on top with a ~15" opening, you could boost it's efficacy another 15-40%. It's wild how much it helps. It even mitigates a little bit of the sound.
@Texan_Reverend @brooklynmarie when I was building it I was confused as to the function of the shroud and opted to skip it. Your explanation actually gives me a reason to add one.
@MrF @brooklynmarie The corners and outside edges where the fan blades don't reach all the way to the housing just wind up being negative pressure zones that pull air into the box without being filtered. That also generates air turbulence which elevates the noise level. The shroud blocks those areas to keep the fan only pushing air up and out. That's how it helps the whole assembly be more efficient/effective and a bit less noisy.
@MrF @brooklynmarie PS: if it's a Utilitech box fan, it benefits from going all the way down to a 14" diameter shroud opening. That said, all box fans tested were better with a 15" shroud opening than with no shroud at all. The Utilitech just benefits even more from going slightly smaller.