[elif]

I've been using the uHoo air monitor for the last few months. I have one in the bedroom, living room, and office. It monitors many air factors, but CO2 was my primary focus.

My original goal was to have a fresh air intake activate automatically at certain concentration levels, if the outside ambient temperature/humidity were appropriate.

However, living in a hot humid place, the data I got made that solution seem futile. Ventilation for CO2 alone takes so much air that it becomes basically a full reset on dehumidifying and conditioning.

However, this failure lead me to the fortuitous discovery that by adding 36 hydroponic heads of lettuce, I am now going beyond outside CO2 levels, dipping down to 390-400 and only reaching ~700 overnight when it's the worst.

[legulere]

You need controlled ventilation with heat recovery to have both good air quality and temperature/humidity.

[tsol]

>However, this failure lead me to the fortuitous discovery that by adding 36 hydroponic heads of lettuce, I am now going beyond outside CO2 levels

Comments like this are why I come to HN to discuss. I honestly want to try this now lol

[teruakohatu]

That I'd very interesting. Is ther data on how much C02 is consumed by lettece?

[elif]

From my calculations I was only expecting about an 80ppm difference, but in practice overnight when the humans and animals are in bedrooms, the living room with plants shoots down to 400 while before it would get about 550 in my leaky old house.

[londons_explore]

You need to approximately grow as many kg of plants each day as you eat food each day.

That's a lot of plants. Possible, but your house will feel more like a rainforest.

[elif]

I run 2 dehumidifiers on top of air conditioning and stay under 60% (almost always under 54%).

Also the hydroponics water the roots of the plants in a closed system so very little of the moisture is evaporated.

Also I'm not sure about your calculation since poop. I would imagine it would be kg consumed - 0.45*kg pooped - house leakiness loss