Hacker News Reader

Comment by tikkun | Hacker News Reader

Would someone who understands this better mind explaining? For example, should we be stop using air purifiers.

If you have a dirty filter it may be actually making your air quality worse (in some ways) than just not running the filter at all. It seems like bacteria caught in the filter are dying and releasing endotoxins, which are small enough to escape the filter and then are sent throughout the environment.

> If you have a dirty filter it may be actually making your air quality worse (in some ways) than just not running the filter at all.

I might have to check the air filter. I’ve been having the worst sinus issues I’ve ever had outside a sinus infection. My eyes constantly tear up, my nose will on occasionally completely shuts, and I’ve been having back to back sneezing attacks.

I originally chalked it up to seasonal allergies, as pollen count is quite high, but I’ve been suspicious of indoor air quality as well. To add to the confusion I got COVID around the same time it started.

It might be a good idea to seek medical advice from your doctor

Last time I spoke with a doctor about sinus issues they just told me to grab some OTC remedy and that was mostly it

Someone, somewhere has the answers you need. I try tell everyone to not accept "no" or "i don't know" for answers if they're still suffering.

FWIW, eventually had sinus surgery, now do saline rinse every day, astelin antihistame spray changed my life. YMMV. Good luck.

The more doctors I see, the more I just feel like a ticket in a queue that needs to be closed out and billed ASAP.

Thank you for saying that, I thought maybe I was just bad at choosing doctors.

The older I get, the more doctors I see, the less each doctor individually does, the more evident that the rapacious copay of my job-provided health insurance will drive me to less health care, perhaps obviating the need for any health care at all, though my executor will be left holding the bag of paying off outstanding bills.

Could you spray the filter with Lysol or another generic disinfectant every once in a while? I do that with my car filter.

No. Your disinfectant droplets are not going to do much to stuff embedded deep inside the filter.

Car cabin filters should be replaced too.

From what I understood of the article, disinfectant might not do much, because it's dead bacteria which are releasing these toxins as their cell walls rupture. Unless it's a disinfectant which turns these toxins into something less dangerous, lysol won't do much.

For particulates, media filters actually get more efficient as they get dirtier. They also get harder to blow air through, which means less air volume with normal fans or higher energy consumption with VFD fans. I'm simplifying a bit, but traditionally change intervals are based solely on keeping air resistance within acceptable values.

This paper presents a different mechanism by which IAQ can be negatively impacted by a dirty media filter. It's possible that this affects change intervals or other measures, and it's possible that this is a matter of theoretical concern but in practice doesn't matter much. It's cliche to say that a study's conclusion is that there should be more studies, but that's really the case here.

It sounds like they're saying that you need to replace your filters periodically.

Isn't this something of a "duh" kind of result though. The packaging on filters give suggested replace after X days kind of info. Yes, the average person doesn't change filters frequently enough, but people with allergies probably do it more regularly. These types of studies just help explain why the manufacture of the filters suggest estimated time of replacing. I say suggest because the filters I use suggest 90 days, but I live with a cat and no carpet, so it gets clogged much faster than 90 days.

It’s a pick your poison conclusion.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com