MaxYakov

2 hours ago, phungo said:

what are some things you do differently day to day to avoid or reduce the effects of the bad air quality, besides having the air filters on?

does wearing masks help?

im planning to buy eyedrops and keep them in my pocket to avoid itchy red eyes.

Eyedrops, eh? And for lung and protection of your entire body from PM2.5 (micron particles)?

For the past 8 years at least I've worn these filter-masks when outside my apartment. I've worn out dozens of them over the years. They are sold with two TG-50SV filters which are a three-layer filter advertised as being able to stop PM2.5 and they have a carbon layer. The advantages of these are that provide a very good facial seal, have a one way exhale valve and the ability to easily replace the filter or augment it. I've augmented mine with another layer of filter material cut out from a 3M PM2.5 N95 disposable mask. Since I've been double-filtering and wearing the filter a lot more I have not come down with the continual colds (virus) I had been getting in the past every six months. They are available at HomePro and a number of other retail outlets in Bangkok.

Also, recently I've begun wearing the mask outside my bedroom in my apartment because I do not run an air purifier in those rooms and have come to the realization that the their air is as polluted as Bangkok's air.

My air-purified bedroom is the only room (or place in the entire city of Bangkok) where I do not wear the mask - ALL THE TIME (except when actually eating - not just waiting for food). People might say this is "over the top". I say it's because Bangkok's air pollution is obviously "over the top". This morning Bangkok was classified as the number 5 city on the planet for the worst air pollution (Channel 3 News). Hanoi, Viet Nam was the worst at >200 AQ - Magenta, Very Unhealthy.

2 hours ago, edwardandtubs said:

September is usually the best month of the year yet tonight is even filthier. It's going to be airpocalypse come December. Bangkok covered in smog will be in the news all over the world just like Beijing used to be.

The RTAQ site doesn't have the Sept 2018 historic data now, but August 2019 looks pretty good compared to our awful Sept 2019 - RTAQ site for Bangkok:

NASA's Fire Information Management System (FIRMS) indicates many fires in a long and wide corridor to the north of Bangkok. Air Visual's current (0230) wind direction is from the Northeast @ 4.9 k/hr. Is this the "smoking gun". RTAQ's wind measurement/display appears to be not working:

2 hours ago, DavisH said:

China is a mess and is the major contributor of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Along with Europe, the US and India.

Japan, Russia, Germany and others are ahead of other European countries in CO₂ according to THIS SITE. Maybe Europe taken as a whole (minus Germany), but I don't have the numbers for each country to add-up.

800,000 travellers keen to ‘Eat, Shop, Spend’

But if they plan on spending time in Bangkok and other places they's better not plan to Breathe without wearing an effective anti-pollution mask (PM2.5, N95 at least). Right now, across Bangkok, the Air Quality index is 185 by the RTAQ site, which is at the 'Unhealthy' or red level.

This is like telling people to use a medical/surgical mask as most Thais do - due to low cost, no doubt.

BTW, I consider the 'Moderate' AQ to still be polluted and not healthy to breathe. I keep my bedroom at AQ 6 or below and wear a mask anytime/every time I'm outside that 'clean' room. Needless to say, I'm not burning much incense in my bedroom. ????

Thailand will be in a "low income trap" until some major social engineering is performed on the people (which is not likely to happen).

2 hours ago, Thainess said:

You all know you'd be better off, health-wise, safety-wise and now even financially (given the unstoppably escalating cost of living in BKK), so this begs the question: Why do you farangs continue to punish yourselves by living in Thailand? Why not return to your wealthy and welfare state-offering Western countries and live out the rest of your days in good health and safety and cooler weather, with the Western foods you like at cheap prices? You'll probably live 10 years longer in your home country. So why not go back?

It's a fair question, Your Thainess. In my case "bad movie syndrome" is probably the best answer. Also, I've accumulated all this <deleted>, including similarly described relationships with a Thai woman or two.

Can you believe it!? The editor automatically converted 'cr#p' to '<deleted>'! Isn't this all a bit off-topic?

Please reference THIS video. 

2 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

This is not looking good.... We're now consistently into the orange unhealthy for sensitive groups.  And if the forecast is correct, we'll be into the red / unhealthy for all status within the week.

 

 

 

 

According to the RTAQ site we PM2.5 in the red for 4 hours this morning and 1 hour last night. I came back from breakfast and my bedroom reading was unusually high for having the door closed and the purifier off while I was away and didn't check the RTAQ, just noted it and turned on the purifier. My bathroom has the same reading as my balcony because the window seals leak like a sieve.:

Yes - STEM (Status, Thainess, Ethnocentricity and Motorbikes) will always be the focus in Thailand.

5 hours ago, nong38 said:

I arrived Sunday, one person in front of me at the desk, what does that tell you?

You were in the wrong queue?

The Thai people are shifting en masse to bicycles!  (I hope not) 

3 hours ago, garyk said:

What a horrible way to live your retirement life!  Hard to believe.

Another Bangkok RTAQ PM2.5 pollution measurement mystery. It was raining throughout the late evening and early morning in central Bangkok yet RTAQ does not reflect what one would expect to be a drop to 'Good'  in the 3 AM recording (or any of the late night early morning measurements). There still a couple of 'Unhealthy for Sensitive Group' measurements. Maybe it wasn't raining hard enough or some unknowns are operating? Reference my previous comment regarding a rapid falloff from Unhealthy to Good of 9/21 HERE;

High Speed Trains: Top drivers train operators like "airline pilots" to be paid 100K up
 

SF Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) identifies them as 'train operators' probably because they are not really 'driving' the trains in the common, 'automobile' sense of the term 'driver'.

A new definition to the aerodynamic aircraft term 'coffin corner'!

6 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 That's interesting. That store is pretty close to my home, and the wife and I are in there often.

 

But when we were shopping there for air purifiers 1-1/2 years back, they had a bunch of different purifiers for sale including Hatari at that time, but ZERO replacement HEPA filters available to sell for any of them, including Hatari.

 

PS - I'd be a little bit leary of "modifying" a wrong sized HEPA filter. Obviously, the filter only works properly when it's air-tight within its purifier device, and room air isn't able to sneak thru any cracks or openings to emerge unfiltered.

 

Just thinking, it might be easier to take an undersized filter and then seal it around the edges within the purifier vs. cutting down to size an oversized HEPA filter. When you start cutting part of the exterior frame of the filter, I think you're pretty much losing its air-tight integrity.

 

 

Yes, modifying a 'wrong sized' HEPA filter to avoid leakage when installed in a cooling fan device could be a bit tricky. All of my HEPA installations have been of this type where the filter was larger. Had the filters been smaller, I have a lot of scrap 6 mm, polyethylene foam insulation from the massive amount of heat insulation i have done for my very large, north and east-facing windows.

In two of my filter adaptations I used Velcro male/female seals as the primary sealing mechanism backed up with duct and scotch tape. The 12 inch exhaust fan adaptation was the most vexing and I nearly constructed an adapter manifold to match the fan's output size to the filter's size. But I got in a hurry (aka lazy and the project was already 4 years behind schedule!) and went with the Velcro and cutting the filter down. Part of the problem with the exhaust fan was that it was so powerful and the filter was such an impedance that holding the filter in place had to be done with screws because using tape would eventually fail and the filter would be pushed out of place. 

The third adaptation was the Hatari HEPA to Hitachi air purifier. The filter was too large in only one dimension and slightly thicker. But it was a drop-in filter so it was fairly to cut the filter down in the one dimension that required it and seal it with tape. I had to slightly modify the Hitachi's front cover in some minor way to deal with the difference in the Hatari's thickness, but cannot remember what it was though but it was to the front cover and not a major modification. Oh, yeah, i had to permanently remove a coarse, pre-filter screen from the purifier.

The easiest adaptation was an older Hatari filter to my (also older) Perfect Brandz PBC-333 evaporative cooler. The filter was only slightly larger than the 333's intake so Velcro was the primary seal with scotch tape as a backup/final seal. Modification of the filter was not necessary (other than removing the activated charcoal layer in order to minimize air flow impedance). Interestingly, the 333's squirrel cage fan is so powerful that with the filter in place it still puts out a relatively large air flow volume - enough for some skin evaporative cooling at a distance of 8 feet or more. So it functions as both a cooling fan and an air purifier, but I have to run its 3-speed fan on low or the fan suffers from what I call impedance cavitation (but this is another story).

i maybe have mentioned this before but all my HEPA filters are pre-filtered with a single layer of 3M Filtreté A/C filter material. This causes additional air flow impedance which I (mainly the fans) am willing to accept. It was easy to get a seal of this to the HEPA filters in every case with ordinary scotch tape or by integrating it with the Velcro seals. The idea of this layer is to catch the larger particles, lint, dust, etc so that the HEPA filters deal with, primarily, only the smaller particles for a longer HEPA filter lifespan. The longer lifespan has yet to be verified and, alarmingly, I ran my bathroom fan for a few days and the filter became visibly dirty indicating that its lifespan is not going to be great. So I now run it for shorter periods and do not plan to use it for massive cooling of my apartment in the future for any more than 1 or 2 hours a day since its filtering dirty Bangkok air directly. 

i'm sure this more than anyone wanted to know about adapting 'wrong sized' HEPA filters to various cooling fans. ????

The Marching Morons - CM Kornbluth, 1951

This is TGTBT - Never seen a rapid falloff from "Sensitive Groups to Moderate to Good" like this one. It must have been the rain. The AirVisual site confirmed it at 29:

In the UK, watching a reality TV series, they are be able to seize or confiscate the vehicle on the spot for any number reasons such as being driven by an uninsured or unlicensed driver, taxes not paid, etc. This is often based on use ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) system.

Do think it should the same in Thailand? It would certainly get the attention of the Thais, but are there enough flatbeds/tow trucks on the planet and how many millions of rai of vehicle storage would be needed?

1 hour ago, saltedegg said:

Haze has gotten immensely thick in BKK over the past hour.

 

Edit: HEPA filters are quite expensive here, no? I'm looking at PowerBuy. Should I be purchasing elsewhere?

HomePro @Chit Lom was pushing the Hatari HEPA filters (had a stack of them for only 888 baht) and the corresponding air purifier (around 5K baht). I bought two and modified them to fit my Hitachi AP and my bathroom intake fan (which I removed the activated charcoal layer for to keep air flow restriction to a minimum).

The correct Hitachi HEPA filter would have had to be shipped from Japan and would have cost around 2,000 each. I had purchased a slightly smaller Hatari HEPA filter several years ago for 600 baht but didn't use it because I knew It would, in short order, get dirty where I was living at the time. I'm using that one now in a box-fan-driven evaporative cooler (that I've converted to be a non-evaporative cooling fan).

Anyway, I'd check with HomePro @Chit Lom.

The store looks as if it was about to fall down on its own. Anyway, send the rogue to an inactive post!

4 hours ago, brewsterbudgen said:

Particularly bad this morning. I and my son are coughing badly again...

Sent from my SM-G930F using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app
 

Sorry to hear that. I'm fairly close (Asok). I personally consider even the so-called "Moderate" as being unacceptable in my apartment and demand (and get) < 2 micrograms (which is around < RTAQ 8 or so and support that level with three separate HEPA-filtered ventilating/cooling/purifying devices).

Ref: HERE

I can't wait to apply my TM6 on a permanent, non-returning basis.