Oh, that’s a good call. I’m going to start working on one!! Thanks!!
“Old victorian” would suggest old window in which case caeful removal of a pane should be a good option.
Freshly upgraded windows haha.
Jeremy, it’s a casement window as opposed to a double hung window. And I fixed it for you!
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Also being from Canada – Alberta, mind you – I feel your pain of wanting to lase in the middle of winter. I didn’t opt into buying the $500 filter, because having heard that the base 40W will feature a standard 4" dryer hose, I intend to build my own filter box to attach to the end of the hose.
You can get activated charcoal/carbon on Amazon (normally used for fish tank filters) for ~$8 CDN for 3 lbs to filter the toxic stuff, and if you add a furnace hepa filter you get the sub-micron smoke/smells. You should be able to make something suitable for ~$30-35, depending how fancy you get with the ‘box’ part of it.
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And install a pane of plexy in the insulation if you miss the light coming through the window!
Why thank you! Can you post an actual picture? I want to brainstorm this more haha
@robbie I’ve seen David / Make Something’s 20" floor fan video in the past, but I’d caution that his is made with much lower safety concerns (ie.- wood dust, pollen) that are much larger particles. I’d definitely suggest a person make something more properly sealed and, again, HEPA filtered than just a regular furnace filter attached to a floor fan.
You’ll definitely want to make something easy to replace the consumables, like the charcoal/carbon and filter. I like the second video. I might make a half-size version of that.
I like the idea of making my own filter. It does scare me a little considering that we’re dealing with potentially bad gasses. But man… its so tempting… I’ll continue to look into it. If anyone does it, let me know!!!
A few words of advice.
Never put your filtering on the discharge side of a fan. This keeps all of your “dirty air” at a negative pressure. Leaks go in, not out. So any leak you have on the discharge is filtered air.
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Oh, thats a good point. Would not have thought of that!!!
Yes, what @spike said. The proper layering of materials really shouldn’t be what those shop videos were doing, and more along the lines of this:
GF output -> Polyester fill (correction: Polyester batting) (available in flat rolls from quilting or fish supply stores) -> Carbon pellet layer -> HEPA filter -> Exhaust fan.
I’ll probably wind up just making a little ‘polyester bag’ with hotglue, filled with carbon.
If you’re not getting any amount of breeze at all (or very little) from the fan, then chances are you’ve packed the carbon too densely. It’s better to use more loosely packed carbon than it is to use less of tightly packed carbon.
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Speaking of “bad gasses”, if you do go with the make-your-own carbon filter approach… use ACTIVATED CARBON (aka activated charcoal). Don’t use plain charcoal/carbon. The ‘activated’ part of it comes from the treatment used to improve the absorption aspects.
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Suppper helpful!!! Thank you!
How often should the carbon be changed? If at all.
Depends on use
You can tell when it stops working
Smell just starts coming through
These are also a good quick way to go
https://www.discountfilters.com/air-filters/16-25-1-carbon-air-filter/p175084/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=Product_Search&utm_campaign=google_base&dc=he29e&gclid=CKqwmeq4r8oCFQdafgodiTQGJw
I have have very good luck with reducing odors with them
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Oh!!! That’s amazing!! Thanks for the link!! That’s great.
Is there a detector (like a smoke detector style) that could be used as a precaution?
For smell? Not that I know of, there are some for gases, but that is a overkill.
If you’re going to get into gas detection, that’s a whole different ballgame.
http://www.rkiinstruments.com/?gclid=COH3tta6r8oCFUNhfgodpF4I1A
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