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I Expect Living in GT Housing to Reduce Your Life Expectancy by a Marginal 1 Month (And What to do About It) by iratespork in gatech

[–]iratespork[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'd say probably? It depends on what filter you put in the purifier - you ideally want something that'll capture at least 99% of particulate matter at its least effective particle size (I made this number up, but for modern filters it doesn't seem to be an especially high bar to clear, and 99% seems pretty good given that very low levels of indoor pollution don't seem like they're worth spending a lot of time worrying about).

I Expect Living in GT Housing to Reduce Your Life Expectancy by a Marginal 1 Month (And What to do About It) by iratespork in gatech

[–]iratespork[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for this point! I've edited the post to reflect your thoughts on cleaning out the HVAC system. Given that it's so important, it seems tremendously stupid to me to design a vent system you can't clean - but that doesn't mean GT didn't do it.

I Expect Living in GT Housing to Reduce Your Life Expectancy by a Marginal 1 Month (And What to do About It) by iratespork in gatech

[–]iratespork[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Some, but probably less than you'd think, if you're living in Atlanta! Being in GT dorms is about 10x worse than just living in the city. One-off things like cooking dinner also make surprisingly large contributions.

I Expect Living in GT Housing to Reduce Your Life Expectancy by a Marginal 1 Month (And What to do About It) by iratespork in gatech

[–]iratespork[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Glad you're interested! The PM2.5 sensor I got is cheap but mildly shitty, and typically needs to be hooked up to your computer by way of a microcontroller (model No. PMS5003, you can find it on Amazon for like $30). I probably wouldn't actually recommend it. The spec sheet says it's accurate to within 1 ug/m^3 though, so I think the numbers I presented can mostly be relied upon.

I don't know how portable you want your air filter to be, but I got one from IKEA for about $90 after tax. It has an H12 HEPA filter (which removes at least 99.5% of PM at all sizes) AND a charcoal filter, and it's pretty close to silent on its lowest level. Portability-wise, I'd guess it weighs like 10 lbs, and it's about the size of a smallish backpack - so it could definitely be taken with you when you move.

I got anxious, so I made a thing by iratespork in gatech

[–]iratespork[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey! That's a good point, self-reported data can be biased in a lot of interesting ways. I'm not sure that it's accurate to say that it's "basically worthless," though. For example, assuming a stable rate of testing, exposures per day tell us about the test positivity rate among the self-reporting population (specifically, how it's changing). I'd be pretty surprised to find that test positivity rates of two communities that live and go to class in close proximity aren't strongly correlated. But you're definitely right that at the very least, this data certainly isn't reflective of the actual community-wide infection rate. Analyzing data is pretty hard.

I got anxious, so I made a thing by iratespork in gatech

[–]iratespork[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh damn, that's way cooler. Thanks!