Dust, Dust & More Dust

W9XR wrote:

Hello this is Spence in Pasig City,

We have a indoor dust problem and I would like to solve it.

I've been looking at Hepa Air filters on Lazada and I don't want to waste my money on something that will not work.

Have any of you purchased a hepa air filter and you were satisfied?

Thanks

Why not make one,  It doesn't have to be fancy, just functional.  A couple of links for ideas.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/home/h … ir-filter/https://inhabitat.com/diy-make-your-own … z2YquuFatx

Simple AC filter material could be used and it's washable.

Regards

Thanks Teejay,

It looks like an easy project. I've have already ordered a Nobico J020 duel core Hepa filter on Lazada for 3300 PHP and waiting for delivery. But the box fan diy filters on your link will be my next project if the Nobico fails to meet my expectations. Thanks again, your response is appreciated.

TeeJay,

Well my air filter arrived, a real waste of money. Dust even settled on the unit away from the intake vents. So I check out the DIY plans and can't find the right box fans or a large enough Hepa air filter.

Back in the states all sizes of Hepa furnace/air conditioners available, even in the supermarkets. I'll keep looking.

TeeJay4103
17 June 2019 02:32:04
Report
#2
these two website links do not work
https://www.popularmechanics.com/home/h … ir-filter/

https://inhabitat.com/diy-make-your-own … z2YquuFatx

regards uk

Zyrena wrote:

TeeJay4103
17 June 2019 02:32:04
Report
#2
these two website links do not work
https://www.popularmechanics.com/home/h … ir-filter/

https://inhabitat.com/diy-make-your-own … z2YquuFatx

regards uk

Both links work fine in the original post.

Living in Manila almost anywhere creates this problem: aside from 'weather-stripping' your doors and windows, it's almost impossible to beat the filthy air. I had an expensive western ultra-filtering system, and the filters were almost constantly needing cleaning, even after doing my best to seal cracks at doors and windows. So it's just better to move out of Manila, or bring in a contractor who is good at performing your requests for a relatively air-tight home.
PS. the black 'dust' is mostly dense and toxic vehicle particulate, and the rest likely your own skin sluffing off in the heat and humidity.

DUST PROBLEM SOLVED

At the time (June 12, 2019) researching "Air Purifiers" on Shopee & Lazada brought zero results.  A recent search resulted in many choices.

There are many Chinese Clones under different names. I bought one, prices vary starting about 1,000 php. They have a Hepa filter, timer, negative ion generator, temperature, parts per million counter and a remote control. It is for a small or medium size room (their claims).

In addition, I also decided to roll my own after watching many Youtube videos. But some of the materials were only available in the states (20" x 20" Hepa Filter).

So I rolled my own monster air purifier. Essentially it's a Balikbayan Box, with a box fan on top and air filters on each of the four sides of the box.

On top of the 20" Box a 19" x 19" square hole was cut. On each of the sides a rectangle hole was cut (9 inches by 12 inches).

Parts list and price All available on Shopee

20" Box Fan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1299 php
4 Hepa Filters  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 776 php
20" x 20" x 20" Balikbayan Box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119 php
2 rolls of double sided foam tape 3/4" x 5 meters.     120 php
1 roll of double sided foam tape 1" x 5 meters. . . . . .  70 php
1 wide roll of clear wide package tape. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 php
                                                                                             --------------
                                                                                Total:  2419 php

Construction Details:

On top of the box cut out a 19 x 19 sq opening to accommodate the 20 " box fan resting on top. Use the 1" double side foam tape to secure the box fan flat on top, with the air blowing up.

On all four sides of the box cut out 9" x 12" rectangle holes to accommodate the 10" x 13" Hepa filter using the 3/4" double sided foam tape attaching the Hepa filters on the outsides of the box.

Goal
To breath clean air, no dust, no mites, no formaldehyde, no bacteria or viruses. Also to keep my aircon cost down by not having as many service calls to clean the unit clogged with dust (four times a year).

Buy a Dyson

onefogarty wrote:

Buy a Dyson

Sure thing on Lazada 29,500 / 49,499 php  ($584.78 / $981.22)

I shipped my Dyson in a BB box after installing a fresh battery. I also bought a robot vac on Amazon and put it in a BB box without opening the box, first one I ever owned. We have white tile on the ground floor and it usually looks spotless (I'm married to a Filipina) but when I empty the dust bin on the vac it is chock full of dust and such. It has a fine screen filter over a pleated paper filter so it does a good job. It comes on once a day and goes all over the place for an hour or two then returns to the charging station. I noticed furniture like the dining table doesn't need dusting as often since we began daily use of the robot vac.

I too have a lot of dust, or so I thought.
I lived in Thailand near the mountains where it is famous for horrible air quality due to farmers burning the rice left overs.  The mountains would complete disappear for about 3 months a year.
So I bought a Mi 2 S with a HEPA which worked fantastically.  It would give a display of the current air quality and could be set to auto or manually to set the speed according to the air quality.
I bought the same thing here and it hardly even registers.  I can test it easily by shaking something dusty near buy and the display number jumps up until the air is cleaned.

I think my woman would be unhappy if she couldn't spend two hours cleaning the house every morning. Sounds terrible, but seriously, it makes her happy and she would tell you the same. It's the way they're brought up.

Great job on the HEPA unit, Spence. Really nice to have the 4 filters working simultaneously.

pnwcyclist wrote:

I think my woman would be unhappy if she couldn't spend two hours cleaning the house every morning. Sounds terrible, but seriously, it makes her happy and she would tell you the same. It's the way they're brought up.

Great job on the HEPA unit, Spence. Really nice to have the 4 filters working simultaneously.

After studying many DIY filters on Youtube there was several important factors to consider.

In AaronArdvark's "Xiaomi Mi 2 S, is round and the Hepa Filter is round also collecting inbound dirty air from 360 degrees and that's good.

Airflow is measured in cfm (cubic feet per minute). The only measurement I could deduct from Box Fan's possible airflow is the wattage of the fan motor. Higher wattage more powerful.

The air intake must have sufficient area as not to stress the fan motor to prevent premature failure. The fan motor should be sufficiently strong enough to blow the clean air up and away as not to re-clean the same air over and over.

I needed four filters, one on each side of the box to have enough airflow to the fan. Hepa filters are extremely dense. HEPA " High Efficiency  Particulate Air", filters out down to .03 Microns.

What is a Micron?
Eye of a needle 1200 Microns
Human Hair up to 300 Microns
Mold Spores up to 30 Microns
Dust up to 30 Microns.
Bacteria between .4 and 2 microns

Not mentioned in my construction article the Balikbayan Box was plain, no printing.
The original size was 20" x 20" X 20" but I cut it down to 13" in height, but kept the width
20" x 20". I also purchased dark wood wall covering for 139 pesos. (Contact Paper, peel
and stick) for a more professional look.

The assembly time took less than an hour and it was an enjoyable project. If anyone tries to duplicate it, your choice of a box fan should have the speed controls on top of the fan.

If you want to spend a little more money you could install an ion generator and a ultra violet LED light strip inside the box.

Sounds good. So it's been a few days...how is it working? Air quality and noise level wise?

Have anyone tried a WATER filter?

pilotdrh wrote:

Sounds good. So it's been a few days...how is it working? Air quality and noise level wise?

First the noise: Ambient noise during the day is not noticeable, but at night it will keep you up. I also have a commercial Hepa clean air purifier purchased on shopee for 1500 php , it has all the bells and whistles: clean air indicator, particle counter, ionizer, timer, remote control which I run at night. It reads between 9 and 13 ppm air quality.

Now for my DIY, I really don't know the effectiveness except my wife has had many dry coughing spells throughout the night and since installing and running both filters , monster daytime and commercial at night time her coughing is almost non existent.

My conclusion is not very scientific, (like taking vitamins, do you feel any better) but on youtube some DIY construction had actual particle reading meters on the other side of the room and within an hour the particle reduction was amazing.

coach53 wrote:

Have anyone tried a WATER filter?

Back in the states I had a "Pure" brand water filter on the kitchen sink. It had a bypass valve. The filters were expensive, my wife would not use it, so we purchased "branded bottle water" keeping with the "Filipina Custom", not the generic type cheaper water, it kept her happy.

Side note: The Pure Brand filter developed a leak maybe a year later, they had good customer service and with one phone call they replaced it free of charge based solely on my phone call.

Apparently two thirds of dust emanates from outside of a property. So by keeping windows shut that should cut down on dust 'imports'.  Air conditioning will not operate efficiently if windows are left open.
One thing I miss when abroad in big cities is the fresh smell of air. Well of course in Manila its anything but so its an easy decision to make.
Very few Brits have air conditioning in their homes because of our temperate climate. Last summer we had 5 days when night-time temps stayed above 17 degrees so I slept on the lounger in the garden 
On visits to Asia I end up with a heavy head cold most of the time and swear this is because of AC. It's very good at spreading germs and presumably dust as well..

Lotus Eater wrote:

Apparently two thirds of dust emanates from outside of a property. So by keeping windows shut that should cut down on dust 'imports'.  Air conditioning will not operate efficiently if windows are left open.

Our Aircon runs 24/7 for the last three years in our large bedroom with windows and door shut. Within several weeks of moving here I noticed how much dust there was. Dust on my printer, keyboard and laptop. Soon the dust turns into a small layer of smudge.

Our Aircon would get so filled with dust that its performance would drop off, needing service cleaning every three months.

So I can just imagine how much I'm breathing in. I've had numerous colds, runny nose and fits of dry coughs, same for my wife (dry coughs).

So now it's overkill using Air Purifiers 24/7.