Air high quality in Southern California is dangerously dangerous due to the fires. Our reporter got down to construct an air filter — in a method the EPA praised, utilizing solely issues she already had at residence.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The fires in Los Angeles have spewed smoke over the town for days. Air filters in houses will help, however what if you do not have one? NPR’s Alejandra Borunda covers well being and local weather change, and he or she got down to see if folks might make filters themselves.
ALEJANDRA BORUNDA, BYLINE: The quick reply is sure. You possibly can construct a DIY air filter in lower than half-hour with stuff that you simply most likely have already got in your own home.
ELLIOTT GALL: My identify is Elliott Gall, and I’m an affiliate professor within the division of mechanical and supplies engineering at Portland State College.
BORUNDA: He is the designer of this air filter referred to as The Cocoon. Graduate scholar Brett Stinson explains.
BRETT STINSON: It is fairly easy. It is only a cloth filter. That is cotton batting and a field fan.
BORUNDA: Mainly, only a tube of material connected to a field fan. Gall says it is an previous expertise referred to as a baghouse filter.
GALL: And it basically is a chunk of material that you simply power air by means of that filters out particulate matter.
BORUNDA: To me, it appears like a blobby, puffy, 8-foot-long sausage. But it surely works nearly in addition to air filters you should purchase. Right here within the lab up in Portland, we load up a sealed bedroom-sized space with smoke and begin The Cocoon operating. Inside about 10 or quarter-hour, the air is just about clear. And I stay in Southern California. Proper now, the air is smoky. So this weekend, my associate and I got down to construct a Cocoon for ourselves.
That is Ali (ph) and Alex’s (ph) try and make a field fan filter.
Gall despatched me a PDF with directions. First, we monitor down an ordinary field fan, like those they promote in nearly each ironmongery shop. Then you definitely want an enormous piece of material that is 72″ broad.
This is the measuring tape.
That is necessary as a result of that measurement will match neatly on the fan.
(SOUNDBITE OF MEASURING TAPE PULLING AND RETRACTING)
BORUNDA: Gall used cotton batting just like the stuff within quilts.
However we do not have that, clearly. I am not a quilter. What we do have – they usually say is OK – is sheets. Cotton or linen work finest, they are saying.
We discovered an previous, full-sized flat sheet at the back of a cupboard. That was excellent. Greater ones might work, too, however you’d have to chop them down. So then we took the sheet, and we folded it in half lengthwise, like an enormous scorching canine bun. After which I connected the 2 lengthy sides collectively very rigorously with duct tape.
(SOUNDBITE OF DUCT TAPE PULLING)
BORUNDA: You find yourself with this huge, lengthy tube. And then you definitely take some rubber bands or hair ties or no matter and twist them round one finish of the tube – such as you’re placing it in somewhat ponytail.
(SOUNDBITE OF RUBBER BAND SNAPPING)
ALEX: That works.
BORUNDA: And now we’re on to the final step. We slip the open finish of the material tube across the fringe of the field fan and duct tape it in place.
(SOUNDBITE OF DUCT TAPE PULLING)
BORUNDA: However ensure you do not make this error.
I coated up the controls. In order that’s somewhat bit foolish. That was my mistake. Do not try this.
Then we flip it on.
(SOUNDBITE OF FAN WHIRRING)
BORUNDA: Ooh. And we now have inflated an enormous blue tube.
It poofs up and appears precisely like a type of slinky tubes little children crawl by means of. Gall says it really works finest in the event you can run it in rooms that are not too huge, like in a single day in a bed room, for instance. And for now, we have got it operating nonstop.
For NPR Information, I am Alejandra Borunda.
(SOUNDBITE OF J. COLE SONG, “FORBIDDEN FRUIT”)
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