Comment by ncmncm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ncmncm | Hacker News Reader

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When the Caldor fire (now 210 thousand acres, 328 mi^2!) was smoking up Placerville, the downtown Home Depot had, at the main entrance, a big stack of 20x24x1-inch #9 furnace filters, box fans, and rolls of tape, with one all constructed sitting on top, running, black with trapped smoke.

Kudos to HD for not jacking up prices.

It is best to make them with a four inch thick filter, which HD does not stock, and higher than a #9, likewise, bought online. You can stack a #8 in front of a #17, to make the ~$100 #17 last longer, and stack two box fans (one intake, one exhaust) to get more suction. Maybe stack #8/fan/#17/fan, to keep the fans clean.

But the single one-inch #9 filter cleared the smoke from my whole house in no time flat! Don't let "best" stop you from doing "good".

An advantage you have from high airflow is that particles that make it through the filter once are likely to get trapped the next time around, or the 20th. Atomizing some water ought to make filters momentarily stickier, until it dries.

Fan blades getting dusty can cut airflow in half! (Same on laptop cooling fans; use a vacuum cleaner on your laptop air path.)

Kudos to HD for not jacking up prices.

Not sure all the credit goes to them since if they jacked up the price during the fire, they'd be violating price gouging laws.

But it is nice that they put the components for a DIY filter all in once place

https://www.oag.ca.gov/consumers/pricegougingduringdisasters

That is news to me, and welcome. By the FAQ, it appears furnace filters must be covered. Box fans might be borderline, but even being seen publicly accused of violating gouging laws would be bad for HD.

The statute is broad enough (it includes "emergency supplies", and the CDC has a how-to guide on creating a box-fan filter) that I'm sure they'd be running afoul of the law if they tried to jack up prices for box fans.

But yeah, any large retailer would avoid any appearance of price gouging even if they could get away with it legally just to avoid the bad publicity.

I guess that explains why McMaster's price for N95 masks never really changed, they were just unavailable.

Although on Amazon it was pretty wild to watch -- I guess if they're not technically N95 masks they can take the price as high as they want since they aren't actually recommended for protecting against viruses. But actual certified N95 masks just became unavailable instead of having high prices.

> McMaster's price for N95 masks never really changed, they were just unavailable.

Of course. The choices are:

1. high price, and availability

2. same price, and none available

Americans seem to always choose #2.

High price in these kind of events rarely increases availability - after all, it takes time to increase production or ship more. If high price appears to increase availability, I suspect that's largely because you're pricing people out of the product. (A slight price increase to counterbalance the overheads of realigning supply lines might be reasonable, but whether that's significant compared to the normal profit margin - probably situational?)

As such, consumers are right to feel vindictive when companies do try and engage in that kind of profiteering; and that social dynamic is one of the ways to keep the market healthy when there are many more consumers than producers - effectively a kind of collective bargaining - at least, if the producer is sensitive to that kind of thing. Sometimes the profit will be worth it and they'll just shrug it off, of course.

But in particular, we should be careful not to support a narrative that empathizes with profiteering, because such empathy (absurd as it is anyhow for a corporation) undermines the shared social frustration needed for the implicit collective bargaining that's happening with these kind of social events. If everybody believes that it's just natural for a company to seek profit above all else, and crucially thus accepting that it's OK for them to screw over the consumer, then it's going to be hard to build momentum for any backlash, and thus hard to improve the negotiating position of the consumer.

Even from a radically capitalist standpoint that's bad, because capitalism works best (is most efficient) in transparent markets where all participants have equal power - and since that's never the reality, it's necessary to counterbalances against larger market participants, or those with more information.

Well, you have a natural experiment right here. N95 masks were out of stock from the beginning, while KN95 never were, and prices were higher, but still affordable for the vast majority of the time since the beginning of the pandemic. It varies between suppliers, but I (in an eastern european country) bought my parents a box-of-boxes of high quality masks when I found a decent price. I think it was about $200, and there's still enough left for a couple of years. Still no shortage.

>High price in these kind of events rarely increases availability - after all, it takes time to increase production or ship more.

If something is an issue for just 1-2 days maybe. If it's more then it seems that should be enough to get at least some express shipments if there was profit to be made.

It's possible; I'm sure the details matter.

However, if you can expedite shipping like this, can you do it in bulk? If so, you probably don't need to raise prices by much at all. But it's also quite likely not simply a matter of pressing the conceptual "expedite" button, because the stuff needs to arrive from somewhere and if it's an unexpected spike in demand, finding a bunch of supply that's ready to ship that quickly strikes me as being unreasonably lucky. More likely, it'd take time to find alternate suppliers, and shipping sufficient quantities to make a dent will take a while.

Of course, if you're doing it for one or two items - individuals can do that themselves, and yes, it's going to be expensive, and no, it's not likely to really increase supply a lot overall.

My assumption here is that shipping in bulk is much more efficient than small-scale shipping, but takes longer to arrange and prepare. But because the costs are spread out over so many items, even if shipping costs extra, that rarely translates to significant price hikes; bulk shipping, even expensive bulk shipping, is assumed to be a fairly small slice of the overall purchase price.

> High price in these kind of events rarely increases availability

Sure it does. For example, with gasoline, it incentivized people outside the disaster zone to load up jerry cans with gas, and drive into the zone to sell it. Anti-gouging laws sure put a stop to that! Now no gas is available.

> consumers are right to feel vindictive when companies do try and engage in that kind of profiteering

Exactly what I said - people prefer no availability.

> not to support a narrative that empathizes with profiteering

Then you'll need to be happy with shortages, long lines, and misallocation.

> capitalism works best (is most efficient) in transparent markets where all participants have equal power

This is not true at all. Lack of information is accounted for by being pricing in as "risk". I do not really understand where the notion that free markets require perfect information comes from. We price in risk all the time. People pay less for items that are risky (like knock-offs) and will demand higher investment returns for risky investments.

Anti-gouging laws also cause hoarding:

1. stocking up whenever possible because of anticipated shortages

2. hoarding in order to sell on the black market

3. hoarding by people who don't need it "just in case"

4. runs on items, so the people who get it were the ones who got their first, either by being lucky or by getting tipped off. (How is this fair?)

We saw this play out magnificently in the Great TP Shortage of 2020.

100% caused by anti-gouging laws.

The idea that anti-gouging laws (and rationing) produce "fair" results should have been amply proven in that shortage, but people can't get past "but it isn't fair!"

I do wish anti-gouging laws would only apply to regular gasoline. Allow premium to float to whatever the market will demand. Midgrade should have a more relaxed anti-gouging rule.

What do you think the benefit of this plan would be exactly?

Happy medium between not gouging desperate people and still ensuring there is some gas available to those that truly need it.

If gas is $3 a gallon, someone with 1/2 tank may stop and fill up. If gas is $30 a gallon, he will be more likely to drive on until he can get far enough away that gas prices would not be high. This leaves gas available for those that are running close to empty and will not make it to the cheaper gas.

But what does that have to do with regular vs. premium gas?

Its designating some product to be a reserve (market price) and others to be anti-gouging. Making regular be anti-gouging would be easier to enforce than other hybrid methods.

>But actual certified N95 masks just became unavailable instead of having high prices.

Part of that is because 3M has been incredibly good about not raising their prices, and has been very clear to its distributors that they're not ok with them raising the prices. Of course this does nothing to stop the hoarders/private sales jacking up prices on eBay...

Home Depot has 3M N95 masks from time to time both in-store and for delivery, I picked up a 10 pack for a home improvement project a month or so ago. I only needed a few, so sent the rest to my immune compromised sibling.

That's a good demonstration of the results that come from price controls.

Just FYI! You want P100, not N95. People in ERs use P100 with a surgical mask ontop. ALSO! 3M is the only trusted supplier (it is hard to make P100s). Why did n95 get all the hype??

https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/v000057510/

P100's are significantly harder to breath in, and I'd question whether the typical user has a good enough fit to actually get the full filtering performance.

I can't speak for ER healthcare workers, but I know from experience that hospital surgical nurses wear N95 masks. I'm not sure why anyone in healthcare would need a P* mask, since they aren't generally exposed to oil.

If I really thought I needed a P100 mask, I'd get a rubber respirator with screw on filters -- they are easier to fit, and the dual respirators have more surface area for easier breathing.

The number in a rating tells you the minimum amount of airborne challenge particles the mask protects against: an N95 mask keeps out at least 95% of particles but isn’t oil resistant, and a P100 mask is oil proof while protecting the wearer from at least 99.8% of particles. (AKA just a better mask).

It's a real bummer to hear such comment - why spread this?

P100 Approved, NIOSH's highest rated filtration efficiency in a filtering facepiece respirator. It is just a higher rating. "P100's are significantly harder to breath in" <- not at all! You should try one - they breath great. They are meant for workers to wear all day. They even have a nice leather like seal making it easier to have proper seal. Also! They are perfect for a quick trip to the grocery store or standing on a bus.

ALSO! The screw on versions are great but they are MUCH heavier and impossible to put in a pocket so they are not practical at all. Nothing about your comment was accurate :(

It's a real bummer to hear such comment - why spread this?

Why spread what? You're the one that claimed that medical workers all use oil resistant P100 masks, while what they overwhelmingly use is N95's (the ones that are medical grade are ASTM certified to be water/fluid resistant, not oil resistant).

In the hospital I worked at, if staff needed better filtration than that N95 could provide, they used full face, powered respirators. (positive pressure means a perfect seal is less critical, and it provides eye protection).

Here's 3M's healthcare line of healthcare masks, they are all N95:

https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/c/ppe/respiratory-protection/h...

I don't know what a P100 is but I don't find a N99 more difficult to breathe than a N95 (but I do feel that I have to exert more force/pressure when breathing).

I use it to cycle and it's ignorable when cycling casually but discomfortable when going for performance. Anedoctally I don't find the extra effort to breathe to be a problem but just the saturated & hot air. So if I were to exhale each time with the mask of and inhale if it on it wouldn't be a problem. PS. I use masks w/ valves and those without one worsen this issue.

https://www.amazon.com/Lasko-FF305-20-inch-Purifier-Purifyin...

I bought one of these, and have been happy with mine. I use a #10 filter in it. I have not needed mine for forest fire smoke (I know these higher rated ones are rated for smoke), but it has been amazing with pulling fine particulate matter from collecting (baking soda, mica, etc).

This simplifies the taping/untaping, but before this purchase I did the tape method too. I was about to look for some aluminium channel to build a frame for the filter, but this product save me the time and hassle of that. Plus, this fan comes with a stronger motor to compensate for the filter.

I would skip the misting. I haven't done the experiment, but a lot of modern filter materials get some of their filtering power from a built-in electrostatic charge, and that may not work if it's wet.

This is one of the reasons why N95 masks are hard to clean/sterilize AND return them to the original effectiveness. You have to remove the water that has condensed on the fibers. Vacuum pump appears to be an effective method.

Thank you, good point I had not thought of. Anyway, they might be permanently degraded by too much moisture.

That said, if you don't have a filter, a wet cloth would work as a filtration medium.

wouldn't you want the cheap filter first to pre-filter the air somewhat to make the more expensive one last longer?

Yes, pre-filtering out the big stuff makes finer and more expensive filters last longer.

Interestingly, initially the captured particles actually make the filter capture finer particles in the future. The captured particles plug up the larger holes and themselves become part of the filter. Of course that doesn't last =)

My understanding (based on my not so great memory of an EPA air filter report) is that there are two basic types of this general type of filter and the electrostatic ones do best near the beginning and get worse over time while the others get better over time but with flow rate suffering. There are a few consumer air filter makers that do much better than most of them, particularly when it comes to the smallest particles, and I think they rarely if ever use the electrostatic ones for the inner filter. Those filters also cost quite a bit; I think the electrostatic ones can do a better job at low cost. For smoke in particular filters can easily aquire a smoke smell that makes them unusable well before they otherwise would be, unless there is a large carbon filter before it, so that favors low cost filters.

> It is best to make them with a four inch thick filter, which HD does not stock

I bought a 20x24x4 #10 pleated wool air filter at HD yesterday.

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