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by dextersgenius 1065 days ago
I have an air filter that ramps up when I'm eating. I bring cooked/heated food into my room and a minute or so later my air filter detects VOCs and ramps up. Sometimes it even goes all the way up to the highest level (level 9) with scary red colors, and that frightens me - is what I'm breathing while eating really harmful, and if it is, then how about whilst cooking? And what about chefs and all others who work in a restaurant, how fucked up would their lungs be?
4 comments

> And what about chefs and all others who work in a restaurant, how fucked up would their lungs be?

Restaurant cooking has been a part of human habitation for centuries. PM2.5 meters have been with us for decades. We already know the answer to this question.

Unless you are replacing the activated carbon filters every week or so, an air purifier won’t be capturing any meaningful amount of VOCs anyways. Manufacturers of filters seem to have decided it is OK to flat out LIE about how long activated carbon filtration is effective for before becoming saturated. Unless you have a massive filter budget, the only meaningful way to control indoor VOC levels is by venting in outdoor air (opening a window). If your automatic filter controller has a way to ignore VOC levels and only monitor particle counts, I would recommend you configure it that way.
Literally just stop worrying, these Chinese gadgets would detect water droplets as harmful "particulates", they're too dumb to actually give you any meaningful info.

You're breathing nastier things while walking down the street or entering a car that stayed in the sun for a few minutes and leached plastic fumes

Your sensor is not very specific to the type and concentration of VOCs, so it's hard to say how unhealthy it is.