Awk

I, mostly out of curiosity, check the pm2.5 reading of my DC1700 particle counter in the evening. Then I decide whether to switch on the air purifier or not, and at what level; medium or max level. Then, being curious, I check things again in the morning, after the air purifier has run all night. Been doing this since the middle of January.

For reference, the Dylos Corp. has this printed on the DC1700, referring to the number (not the mass) of pm2.5 particles reported.

3000 and above = Very Poor

1050-3000 = Poor

300-1050 = Fair

150-300 = Good

75-150 = Very Good

0-75 = Excellent

There is no good mapping to the standard, mass-based, pm2.5 metric as far as I know, but the above are Dylos Corp's guidelines (not sure what they are based on).

You can read more about Dylos corp's products here: http://www.dylosproducts.com/

Anyway, up until 3-4 weeks ago, the pm2.5 reading had been around 2,000-3,000 most of the time. Sometimes down to around 1,000 also. That's the level it is at much of the year I think, though I have not really attempted to verify that. So I have not bothered running the air purifiers at that time. Then the pm2.5 count started to raise, and most of this month I think it has been around 4-7,000 in the evening, before I switch on the air purifier.

So I've been running the air purifier at medium power most of the nights this month, increasing to the max when the reading was above 6-7,000. There's been some days where it has been close to 10,000. Medium power on my air purifier (Blueair 650E) brings the pm2.5 reading down from 6-7,000 to around 2-3,000. Not great, according to Dylos Corp's guidelines, but in honesty, I am not sure how applicable they are. If I remember, I will try to bring the DC1700 with me next time I leave for work, which it currently looks like will be to one of the supposedly cleanest countries (pollution-wise) in the world, to see what the DC1700 reports there. If the pm2.5 reading is much higher than 6-7,000 the evening before, I need to run the air purifier at max power to bring the pm2.5 reading in the room down to 2-3,000. If run at max power, most of the time, the pm2.5 reading will then be around 1,000 in the morning. But max power generates a lot of noise.

Last night I came home late (Friday night, you know). Mrs. Awk had switched on the air purifier at medium power, and I out of curiosity checked the pm2.5 reading before going to bed. I saw that it was around 6-7000, and since the air purifier was running at medium power, I switched it up to max power, waking up Mrs. Awk in the process.

When I woke up this morning, after running the purifier at max power all night I however saw that the pm2.5 reading was still around 5,000. I thought this was quite strange. I walked around checking if Mrs. Awk had for some reason opened a window or or two, but no. Then I thought maybe I had placed the air purifier at a somewhat stupid location, close to the wall (to reduce the chance of baby-Awk running into it). So I moved it to the middle of the room, and checked the pm2.5 reading again after an hour. Nope, still around 5,000. Then I took my dc1700 outside the room. Outside the room, the pm2.5 reading was almost 20,000, perhaps even above that for some periods.

Indeed, it does appear that it, whatever it is, it has arrived.

One hour ago: pm 2.5:30,000+ outside the bedroom, same as outside the house.

Inside bedroom, with air purifier at max, and ac running too: 3,000.

Which ever direction the wind blows from will be the cause of CM pollution in your opinion. Sorry, but you need to look a bit closer to home. Good luck in your search for double glazing, but I think you might have a problem getting the rose tinted finish.

This is necessary to maintain the balance in the universe. Somewhere there is a Burmese equivalent of the thaivisa forum, and on that forum somebody is posting that the problem is caused by the remote burning in Thailand. Perhaps there is even somebody in China also posting that.

It is however possible, I guess. I have often thought it would serve as a great subject for a master's thesis, or perhaps even a decent Ph.d., to attempt to quantify the amount of pm 2.5 / pm 10 mass that is produced here locally, versus blown in from other countries. No idea how that could be done, nor have I given it any thought, but that is what research is for.

I noticed the ug/m3 readings have a daily cycle, except today unusually high most of the day.

AQI is much smoother because it averages over 24 hours, so this detail is missed.

Here's a graph of the past few days, so it seems the best time to get stuff done outside is around 12pm-7pm. The readings come in an hour or two delayed so this info isn't available real time.

I'm assuming unscientifically that inside the house is safer, just seems much fresher air inside.

The bottom axis is time.

Using the Dylos DC1700 I did some amateur measurements last year, including evaluating the effect of being inside, versus being outside. I posted the PDF resulting from my amateur analysis here on thaivisa for anyone interested, but just to recap that part:

- There are about 30% fewer particles with the a size above pm2.5 inside, compared to outside. I.e., as far as pm10 is concerned, it is quite a bit better to be inside.

- There is no significant differences between inside and outside for particles smaller than pm2.5. Unfortunately, pm2.5 is, most now seem to think, the main hazard, and being inside does not help. What does help is running an AC, with or without 3M Filtrete, or better, an air purifier. Best: AC and air purifier.

Based on the trend your graphs showed, I had some worries, and therefore did some more measurements with the dc1700 the past few days. Both this Friday and last Wednesday, air downstairs inside the house (the living room, where no air purifier runs during the evening/night) was considerably worse in the morning than the air outside. The particle count inside was close to 10,000, while outside it was roughly half of that. These measurements were done around 11:00 in the morning.

I wonder if one explanation might be that improvements in air quality outside is related to temperature, though I will not at the moment hazard to guess exactly how. Outside at 11:00, it's quite hot, and if this causes the pollution to go away (perhaps by the polluted air heating and, at least temporarily, raising?), this effect may not be equally present inside the house, where is is much cooler than outside.

After a while, the pm2.5 count inside and outside is fairly close (at least for the poorly constructed house we live in), but this can take quite a few hours, and might depend on wind conditions too. I tried ventilating by opening the two doors downstairs to the outside, but could not measure any significant improvements. I wonder if placing a fan outside the door, blowing air in, will have a more measurable effect and more quickly bring the indoor air quality to a level similar to the outside.

Instead I carry the air purifiers down from the upstairs bedrooms, both of them, as only one has little effect on the large downstairs living room, but even both air purifiers running at max power use several hours to lower the particle count considerably. Perhaps placing a fan in the doorway first,

before closing the doors and switching on the air purifiers, will make the process faster. Will try that next time.

Well, that was Wednesday and Friday morning. On Thursday morning, there was for some reason no big difference between the inside and outside. I see now that according to the aqmthai, the pm 2.5 count was considerably lower on Thursday morning than on Wednesday and Friday morning, so perhaps it is somehow related to that.

It's even clearer with this PM2.5 one below.

From http://aqicn.org/city/thailand/chiangmai/yupparaj-wittayalai-school/m/ this week as the temperature rises the pressure falls and the wind rises, perhaps taking some of the smoke high enough in the air streams to get carried away. The wind fits the 10am-2pm period where the levels are decreasing. Today was the least windy and the highest PM levels, but if burning increases there's unlikely to be enough wind to compensate for that. I also guess from this graph the local farmers are getting up at 6am for a session of burning, and so this makes me feel most of the problem is local rather than far away.

That is some rather nice graphs. If there is a fairly predictable time of day when it is less bad to be out and perhaps exercising, that is interesting I thought.

I have been wondering whether the trend your graphs show was present over a larger range of days, and finally got around to check that. The first plot I attach is pm10 for all years I could get data for (end of 2010 till present date), and shows the month of February during those years (2011 - 2015). In total there were 3833 measurements for February during those years, and each measurement represents a point on the graph.

I.e., if the there are 10 points for the time "4", that means measurements were available for hour 04 at 10 different days in February. I don't know why many measurements are missing from the data available from the aqmthai website . Perhaps the monitoring station has some reliability issues.

The trend is not as obvious as in your graph, but can still be seen, even over five years. Plotting February separately for each year, there seems to be some small variance in when the pm10 level starts to raise from year to year, but in all graphs, it seems to be falling at 14:00. As I understand it, and as I think you say, the measurements show the average of the past hour. So if the pm10 level is shown as falling at 14:00, it probably means it started to fall at 13:00 or a little later.

Year 2011 and this year seem to show the trend especially clear, while other years less so.

I attach similar graphs for the month of March also. For that month, year 2011 also shows the trend especially clear, so perhaps this March will also continue to show the same trend. For March this year, the measurements are up to midnight March 5.

I just finished generating the graph and have no conclusion to draw, at least not at the moment. I am not sure any interesting conclusion can be drawn, but perhaps somebody smarter will see something, so I thought I might as well upload them since I had already generated them.

month-02_pm10-by-hour.pdf

month-02_pm10-by-hour.pdf

month-02_pm10-by-hour.pdf

month-02_pm10-by-hour.pdf

month-02_pm10-by-hour.pdf

month-02_pm10-by-hour.pdf

month-03_pm10-by-hour.pdf

month-03_pm10-by-hour.pdf

month-03_pm10-by-hour.pdf

month-03_pm10-by-hour.pdf

month-03_pm10-by-hour.pdf

month-03_pm10-by-hour.pdf

This whole burning and pollution thing is not just a one off,its been going on

for years AND still this Government,and past Governments,do nothing serious

about it,except threaten crackdowns (never happen),stupid ideas like spraying water,

huge fans to blow it all away, instead of been proactive,like making it a criminal offence,

with serious penalties,not a slap on the wrist, but jail time and large fine,if mushroom

pickers can get 30 years, what the penalty for polluting all of the North,making people

suffer.

regards worgeordie

I think that is putting things a little to simple. This is not the enforcement of helmet-laws, but the livelihood of farm people, as well as, perhaps, an not insignificant part of the contribution to the domestic food supply, and Thailand's GDP. If the people burning the fields and forests do that because it is necessary in order for them to get a decent harvest, putting them in jail for "doing their job" is not necessarily a good thing to do.

Other countries have obviously solved the problem somehow, and just as obvious I think, the government must first provide the farmers (and mushrooms growers? Or can they simply be put in jail? Who cares about mushrooms anyway) with a satisfactory alternative. Be it education on a different, more environmentally friendly to the rest of us, way of ensuring a good harvest, economic support for additional farm machines needed, or whatever it is. Perhaps the reason why there are no harsh penalties or jail term is also related to this lack of alternative.

Anyway, I do not think it is our place as short or long term guests to make demands of the local people to change their ways. I know I'd find it pretty annoying if a bunch of foreigners in my own home country started doing that.

I had a long telephone conversation this morning with a Thai friend who lives in Chiang Mai.

She is absolutely convinced that the smoke and haze comes from Burma. I tried to tell her that Thais were burning the fields too. No way whould she accept this.

Where do these people get their ideas from?

No idea. None of the Thai people I know think anything that stupid. There's been a fair amount of posters here on thaivisa stating similar things however. Perhaps Thais in disguise?

need to have 3m P95 masks specifically for pollution

I got a 3m P95 by accident instead of a N95. Is this mask good for air pollution as well? It seems like looking online it works for oil based particles such as paint, but wondering if that would detract from the filtering the smoke.

Thanks

As I understand it, they are the same except that the P95 standard requires, in addition to all that the N95 standard requires, that the mask shall be "strongly resistant to oil".

See here http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npptl/topics/respirators/disp_part/

So there should be no problem using the P95 mask when that is what you have already, but perhaps they cost a little more than the N95 mask, and there is no reason to pay extra for it as it has no usable benefits, unless you work on an oil rig.

Pingtest is the same company as speedtest. I doubt a medium sized ISP would be able to do that without being caught by the site not to mention We would have seen all the big ISP do that just to fool customers with all the $$$$$ they have. Speedtest does not mean much to be but I can watch Netflix on one laptop while my wife can watch live sports in HD on the other means more. Does not matter how many test results I post there will always be skeptics all I can say is try it is worth every penny if anything I thin they undercharge I would pay 2x what I am paying now for what I am getting

got a few more speedupdate all tested with Sinet 30/10 using speedtest.net

server Cortex IT, Lausanne, Switzerland Cortex IT- Lausanne Switzerland.png

server blic.net, Luka, Bosnia HerzegovinaBlic.net- Banja Luka, Bosnia Herzegovina.png

Gravelines France Gravelines-France.png

Kabel TV, Binz GermanyKabel TV-Binz Germany.png

Giganet Internet, Nyiregyhaza, Hungary Giganet Internet- Nyiregyhaza, Hungary.png

Hall in Tirol, AustriaHall in Tirol, Austria.png

Horry Tel, Conway, SC, USAHorry Tel-Conway SC, USA.png

HV Free, Roznov, Czech RepublicHV Free- Roznov, Czech Republic.png

Many thanks for all the tests. The latency results are so impressive that I unfortunately am certain that due to the silly way speedtest tests "ping" latency, the latency tests have been caught by a local Sinet proxy. So speedtest has instead of testing the latency to far away places, tested the latency to some local Sinet web proxy. :-(

Unfortunately, I'm not aware of any other website similar to speedtest that has a similar range of global servers available and which is does a better job at testing latency. :-/

I see something called http://www.pingtest.net/, but I am unable to run it on my particular computer so not sure how that works.

Download/Upload speed reported is correct I assume however, so thanks again.

Well, the isp is not really trying to fake anything. It is common for ISPs to install web proxies/caches that their customers can use, transparently or not. This is done with the intent of improving things for both the customer and the ISP, rather than to fake anything. Unfortunately the latency test implemented by speedtest.net does not seem to handle this well.

Getting sub-30ms latency to Europe, as the tests you pasted report, is physically impossible. At speed of light speed, you get a delay of roughly 3ms per 1000km (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latency_%28engineering%29). Europe is about 10,000km away from Thailand, so the delay to Europe would be about 30ms, if you had speed of light. Double that delay, as the reported latency is round-trip time (i.e., Thailand to Europe, and back from Europe to Thailand), and you have 60ms. And that's speed of light from your computer all the way to Europe and back. So I hope you pardon my scepticism regarding the latency results, and do not take offence. I suspect what most people are interested in are upload/download bandwidth anyway.

got a few more speedupdate all tested with Sinet 30/10 using speedtest.net

server Cortex IT, Lausanne, Switzerland Cortex IT- Lausanne Switzerland.png

server blic.net, Luka, Bosnia HerzegovinaBlic.net- Banja Luka, Bosnia Herzegovina.png

Gravelines France Gravelines-France.png

Kabel TV, Binz GermanyKabel TV-Binz Germany.png

Giganet Internet, Nyiregyhaza, Hungary Giganet Internet- Nyiregyhaza, Hungary.png

Hall in Tirol, AustriaHall in Tirol, Austria.png

Horry Tel, Conway, SC, USAHorry Tel-Conway SC, USA.png

HV Free, Roznov, Czech RepublicHV Free- Roznov, Czech Republic.png

Many thanks for all the tests. The latency results are so impressive that I unfortunately am certain that due to the silly way speedtest tests "ping" latency, the latency tests have been caught by a local Sinet proxy. So speedtest has instead of testing the latency to far away places, tested the latency to some local Sinet web proxy. :-(

Unfortunately, I'm not aware of any other website similar to speedtest that has a similar range of global servers available and which is does a better job at testing latency. :-/

I see something called http://www.pingtest.net/, but I am unable to run it on my particular computer so not sure how that works.

Download/Upload speed reported is correct I assume however, so thanks again.

I have never done biking for exercise, but HeyNow's suggestion sounds great. The N95 should do fine. See e.g. here: http://www.myhealthbeijing.com/prevention/how-good-are-masks-for-pollution/

Unfortunately, I am more used to running, so it's indoor treadmill and rowing machine for me from now on. Good luck the gym got a concept2 rower last year.

Bump: Just wanting some recommendations from people who have bought condos using a lawyer, should be a very easy transaction, seller is a foreigner so its in the foreign quota, basically just needing them to do title deed search to ensure nothing owing on the property, go over the contract, etc.

Have you tried Sumalee Jennapa at 29tanin.com? Based on previous recommendations here, that was going to be my first stop for similar business. In my case, that particular deal fell through before I got to the point of contacting the Ms. however.

I noticed the ug/m3 readings have a daily cycle, except today unusually high most of the day.

AQI is much smoother because it averages over 24 hours, so this detail is missed.

Here's a graph of the past few days, so it seems the best time to get stuff done outside is around 12pm-7pm. The readings come in an hour or two delayed so this info isn't available real time.

I'm assuming unscientifically that inside the house is safer, just seems much fresher air inside.

The bottom axis is time.

Thanks for that graph. I have also noticed that there seems to be semi-regular pattern, so it was to nice to see several days graphed together like that. I can only wonder what causes it, as looking at your graphs, it seems strangely regular.

I, mostly out of curiosity, check the pm2.5 reading of my DC1700 particle counter in the evening. Then I decide whether to switch on the air purifier or not, and at what level; medium or max level. Then, being curious, I check things again in the morning, after the air purifier has run all night. Been doing this since the middle of January.

For reference, the Dylos Corp. has this printed on the DC1700, referring to the number (not the mass) of pm2.5 particles reported.

3000 and above = Very Poor

1050-3000 = Poor

300-1050 = Fair

150-300 = Good

75-150 = Very Good

0-75 = Excellent

There is no good mapping to the standard, mass-based, pm2.5 metric as far as I know, but the above are Dylos Corp's guidelines (not sure what they are based on).

You can read more about Dylos corp's products here: http://www.dylosproducts.com/

Anyway, up until 3-4 weeks ago, the pm2.5 reading had been around 2,000-3,000 most of the time. Sometimes down to around 1,000 also. That's the level it is at much of the year I think, though I have not really attempted to verify that. So I have not bothered running the air purifiers at that time. Then the pm2.5 count started to raise, and most of this month I think it has been around 4-7,000 in the evening, before I switch on the air purifier.

So I've been running the air purifier at medium power most of the nights this month, increasing to the max when the reading was above 6-7,000. There's been some days where it has been close to 10,000. Medium power on my air purifier (Blueair 650E) brings the pm2.5 reading down from 6-7,000 to around 2-3,000. Not great, according to Dylos Corp's guidelines, but in honesty, I am not sure how applicable they are. If I remember, I will try to bring the DC1700 with me next time I leave for work, which it currently looks like will be to one of the supposedly cleanest countries (pollution-wise) in the world, to see what the DC1700 reports there. If the pm2.5 reading is much higher than 6-7,000 the evening before, I need to run the air purifier at max power to bring the pm2.5 reading in the room down to 2-3,000. If run at max power, most of the time, the pm2.5 reading will then be around 1,000 in the morning. But max power generates a lot of noise.

Last night I came home late (Friday night, you know). Mrs. Awk had switched on the air purifier at medium power, and I out of curiosity checked the pm2.5 reading before going to bed. I saw that it was around 6-7000, and since the air purifier was running at medium power, I switched it up to max power, waking up Mrs. Awk in the process.

When I woke up this morning, after running the purifier at max power all night I however saw that the pm2.5 reading was still around 5,000. I thought this was quite strange. I walked around checking if Mrs. Awk had for some reason opened a window or or two, but no. Then I thought maybe I had placed the air purifier at a somewhat stupid location, close to the wall (to reduce the chance of baby-Awk running into it). So I moved it to the middle of the room, and checked the pm2.5 reading again after an hour. Nope, still around 5,000. Then I took my dc1700 outside the room. Outside the room, the pm2.5 reading was almost 20,000, perhaps even above that for some periods.

Indeed, it does appear that it, whatever it is, it has arrived.

Thanks for posting this info, and it confirms my fears that CM air quality is poor year round (PM 2.5 1000 is your estimate).

Every time I leave, I notice the cleaner air, no matter where I go.

Oh, no no no. Please read again what I said carefully. The pm2.5 number I mention of 1000 is not the microgram/m^3 that is used in most other places, but the number of particles the Dylos reported. It has no direct relation to the health standards for pm2.5 and represents something very different. 1000, if reported by the Dylos device, is "good air".

But in the table you provide 1050-3000 is considered poor. And this refers to the number of particles report by Dylos, does it not?

I did not think it referred to micrograms/m^3.

From your table, good air is 150-300, again the number of particles reported by Dylos.

Sorry, I misunderstood you then. Yes, what you say is correct, and yes, that is according to Dylos Corp's guidelines.

However:

In honesty I am as said not sure how applicable those guidelines are. I suspect they are quite a bit to strict for normal home use. If one googles,. one sees that even in California people report a pm2.5 count inside above 1000. I've gotten very used to thinking that anything close to 1,000 inside is good, though I should not have said that above since I do not know, and realize now it was a bit stupid. So again, sorry. My mistake.

I would put more faith in the government monitoring stations and the (WHO-based?) pm2.5 and pm10 standards for this.

Most of the year, the pm10 reported for Chiang Mai is afaik pretty good (there was another fellow here, Priceless, that seemed to keep good track of that, though I have not seen anything from him for a while now).

It will be interesting to see if the pm2.5 values will be similarly good, now that they seem to be available from at least one monitoring station here in CM.

I noticed the ug/m3 readings have a daily cycle, except today unusually high most of the day.

AQI is much smoother because it averages over 24 hours, so this detail is missed.

Here's a graph of the past few days, so it seems the best time to get stuff done outside is around 12pm-7pm. The readings come in an hour or two delayed so this info isn't available real time.

I'm assuming unscientifically that inside the house is safer, just seems much fresher air inside.

The bottom axis is time.

Using the Dylos DC1700 I did some amateur measurements last year, including evaluating the effect of being inside, versus being outside. I posted the PDF resulting from my amateur analysis here on thaivisa for anyone interested, but just to recap that part:

- There are about 30% fewer particles with the a size above pm2.5 inside, compared to outside. I.e., as far as pm10 is concerned, it is quite a bit better to be inside.

- There is no significant differences between inside and outside for particles smaller than pm2.5. Unfortunately, pm2.5 is, most now seem to think, the main hazard, and being inside does not help. What does help is running an AC, with or without 3M Filtrete, or better, an air purifier. Best: AC and air purifier.

Btw, the Dylos unit was amongst other places evaluated in a paper "Prepared for the California Air Resources Board and the California Environmental Protection Agency", by a

I, mostly out of curiosity, check the pm2.5 reading of my DC1700 particle counter in the evening. Then I decide whether to switch on the air purifier or not, and at what level; medium or max level. Then, being curious, I check things again in the morning, after the air purifier has run all night. Been doing this since the middle of January.

For reference, the Dylos Corp. has this printed on the DC1700, referring to the number (not the mass) of pm2.5 particles reported.

3000 and above = Very Poor

1050-3000 = Poor

300-1050 = Fair

150-300 = Good

75-150 = Very Good

0-75 = Excellent

There is no good mapping to the standard, mass-based, pm2.5 metric as far as I know, but the above are Dylos Corp's guidelines (not sure what they are based on).

You can read more about Dylos corp's products here: http://www.dylosproducts.com/

Anyway, up until 3-4 weeks ago, the pm2.5 reading had been around 2,000-3,000 most of the time. Sometimes down to around 1,000 also. That's the level it is at much of the year I think, though I have not really attempted to verify that. So I have not bothered running the air purifiers at that time. Then the pm2.5 count started to raise, and most of this month I think it has been around 4-7,000 in the evening, before I switch on the air purifier.

So I've been running the air purifier at medium power most of the nights this month, increasing to the max when the reading was above 6-7,000. There's been some days where it has been close to 10,000. Medium power on my air purifier (Blueair 650E) brings the pm2.5 reading down from 6-7,000 to around 2-3,000. Not great, according to Dylos Corp's guidelines, but in honesty, I am not sure how applicable they are. If I remember, I will try to bring the DC1700 with me next time I leave for work, which it currently looks like will be to one of the supposedly cleanest countries (pollution-wise) in the world, to see what the DC1700 reports there. If the pm2.5 reading is much higher than 6-7,000 the evening before, I need to run the air purifier at max power to bring the pm2.5 reading in the room down to 2-3,000. If run at max power, most of the time, the pm2.5 reading will then be around 1,000 in the morning. But max power generates a lot of noise.

Last night I came home late (Friday night, you know). Mrs. Awk had switched on the air purifier at medium power, and I out of curiosity checked the pm2.5 reading before going to bed. I saw that it was around 6-7000, and since the air purifier was running at medium power, I switched it up to max power, waking up Mrs. Awk in the process.

When I woke up this morning, after running the purifier at max power all night I however saw that the pm2.5 reading was still around 5,000. I thought this was quite strange. I walked around checking if Mrs. Awk had for some reason opened a window or or two, but no. Then I thought maybe I had placed the air purifier at a somewhat stupid location, close to the wall (to reduce the chance of baby-Awk running into it). So I moved it to the middle of the room, and checked the pm2.5 reading again after an hour. Nope, still around 5,000. Then I took my dc1700 outside the room. Outside the room, the pm2.5 reading was almost 20,000, perhaps even above that for some periods.

Indeed, it does appear that it, whatever it is, it has arrived.

Thanks for posting this info, and it confirms my fears that CM air quality is poor year round (PM 2.5 1000 is your estimate).

Every time I leave, I notice the cleaner air, no matter where I go.

Oh, no no no. Please read again what I said carefully. The pm2.5 number I mention of 1000 is not the microgram/m^3 that is used in most other places, but the number of particles the Dylos reported. It has no direct relation to the health standards for pm2.5 and represents something very different. 1000, if reported by the Dylos device, is "good air".

Somebody pm-ed me about where I got the graphs I posted, so I'll reply here instead as others may also be interested. I know very little about web-things, but the below works for me:

- Go to http://aqmthai.com/public_report.php?lang=en

- In the window that lists all the stations, starting with "02t" currently, select e.g. station 36. According to Google translate, that is Yupparaj school in Chiang Mai.

- Select "Show [500] rows".

- Select paramter (PM10 or PM2.5)

- Possibly change the Start Period date.

- Click the Table or Graph button.

The graphs or table I posted is displayed. Note that you may need to [Next] button to get to the last (current) date.

I asked what a DC1700 is and you didn't answer so I googled the product.

Tell me that you're not serious when you ask us to believe the readings from your K-Mart hand held device versus the readings from any government agency anywahere!

http://www.dylosproducts.com/dc1700.html

I thought for a minute there that you were actually being serious.

Next!

Sorry, I thought you were more intelligent than that. Had I known, I would not have wasted my time replying.

Others may be interested in reading this one, which is why I originally decided on buying the product:

http://hvac-talk.com/vbb/showthread.php?150973-how-good-is-the-Dylos-DC1100-air-quality-monitor

I'm no environmental engineer, but I am an engineer, and I have read enough wish-wash talk, and seen enough dysfunctional devices to put some trust in what the Dylos engineer in the url I quote says. What he says does not trigger my snake oil alarms, and I have only good things to say about the product.

And I can only wonder what you mean by "versus the readings from any government agency". The whole point of my post was that my device and the government reading match very well. There is no "versus" here.

Oh, and I did not answer your question about what the dc1700 is, because in the same post I mentioned it, I also linked to the website of the company that produces it, so your question was nonsensical.

Next indeed.

Eloquent, but what's a DC1700? And, NASA firemaps continue to suggest that burning is currently at a minimum, as do my senses.

How do you account for the divergence in views?

The firemaps I must admit I am not sure what shows. Mostly out of laziness I have never looked at them or tried to understand what the practical meaning is.

However, there is no divergence with the city's monitoring stations, as you can see from the attached pictures. So I think it would be beneficial if people (not you, others) stopped insinuating that the city is faking the data, or that what was perhaps just an innocent cleaning of the equipment with water is them trying to distort the readings.

The city's pm readings dropped sharply however, so we can only hope that the spike was temporal.

And here are the same pm2.5 readings, but in table form (also from the excellent http://aqmthai.com/public_report.php?lang=en site).

According to them, the spike was quite short lived. The time matches what I saw, as I admittedly woke up quite late today, around 10, which is when I first checked the readings on my dc1700, and then around a hour later, at 11. At those times, the city readings were peaking.

Unfortunately I did not do any local readings after that, but it is not necessarily the case that my (san-sai area) readings and station 36 will always match anyway. I'm sure there are a countless local phenomena that may make things differ between the two locations (e.g., just a simple wind shift). However, when they do match, it is a good indication that all is in order I think.

Eloquent, but what's a DC1700? And, NASA firemaps continue to suggest that burning is currently at a minimum, as do my senses.

How do you account for the divergence in views?

The firemaps I must admit I am not sure what shows. Mostly out of laziness I have never looked at them or tried to understand what the practical meaning is.

However, there is no divergence with the city's monitoring stations, as you can see from the attached pictures. So I think it would be beneficial if people (not you, others) stopped insinuating that the city is faking the data, or that what was perhaps just an innocent cleaning of the equipment with water is them trying to distort the readings.

The city's pm readings dropped sharply however, so we can only hope that the spike was temporal.

1. The time to talk is not in the days & weeks before the burning season. It should have been after the last burning season, giving all year to come up with a plan.

2. Is "haze" the current euphemism for that lung-clogging smoke they get each year? Haze is certainly a kinder, gently term for their horrific pollution.

YES! SMOG is quite the wrong term for those who use it. Smog is natural fog, mixed with smoke.

Here, it's pure smoke, mixed with the spewing diesel smoke of buses and song teaws.

http://www.epa.vic.gov.au/air/aq4kids/smog.asp

The term smog was first coined during the 1950s when it was used to describe a mixture of smoke and fog experienced in London. Major cities along the west coast of America were also experiencing a different type of air pollution.

Smog occurs when emissions from industry, motor vehicles, incinerators, open burning and other sources accumulate under certain climatic conditions. There are two types of smog: summer (the type of smog first experienced in America) and winter (the one first noticed in London).

I think smog is a fitting term.

I, mostly out of curiosity, check the pm2.5 reading of my DC1700 particle counter in the evening. Then I decide whether to switch on the air purifier or not, and at what level; medium or max level. Then, being curious, I check things again in the morning, after the air purifier has run all night. Been doing this since the middle of January.

For reference, the Dylos Corp. has this printed on the DC1700, referring to the number (not the mass) of pm2.5 particles reported.

3000 and above = Very Poor
1050-3000 = Poor
300-1050 = Fair
150-300 = Good
75-150 = Very Good
0-75 = Excellent

There is no good mapping to the standard, mass-based, pm2.5 metric as far as I know, but the above are Dylos Corp's guidelines (not sure what they are based on).

You can read more about Dylos corp's products here: http://www.dylosproducts.com/

Anyway, up until 3-4 weeks ago, the pm2.5 reading had been around 2,000-3,000 most of the time. Sometimes down to around 1,000 also. That's the level it is at much of the year I think, though I have not really attempted to verify that. So I have not bothered running the air purifiers at that time. Then the pm2.5 count started to raise, and most of this month I think it has been around 4-7,000 in the evening, before I switch on the air purifier.

So I've been running the air purifier at medium power most of the nights this month, increasing to the max when the reading was above 6-7,000. There's been some days where it has been close to 10,000. Medium power on my air purifier (Blueair 650E) brings the pm2.5 reading down from 6-7,000 to around 2-3,000. Not great, according to Dylos Corp's guidelines, but in honesty, I am not sure how applicable they are. If I remember, I will try to bring the DC1700 with me next time I leave for work, which it currently looks like will be to one of the supposedly cleanest countries (pollution-wise) in the world, to see what the DC1700 reports there. If the pm2.5 reading is much higher than 6-7,000 the evening before, I need to run the air purifier at max power to bring the pm2.5 reading in the room down to 2-3,000. If run at max power, most of the time, the pm2.5 reading will then be around 1,000 in the morning. But max power generates a lot of noise.

Last night I came home late (Friday night, you know). Mrs. Awk had switched on the air purifier at medium power, and I out of curiosity checked the pm2.5 reading before going to bed. I saw that it was around 6-7000, and since the air purifier was running at medium power, I switched it up to max power, waking up Mrs. Awk in the process.

When I woke up this morning, after running the purifier at max power all night I however saw that the pm2.5 reading was still around 5,000. I thought this was quite strange. I walked around checking if Mrs. Awk had for some reason opened a window or or two, but no. Then I thought maybe I had placed the air purifier at a somewhat stupid location, close to the wall (to reduce the chance of baby-Awk running into it). So I moved it to the middle of the room, and checked the pm2.5 reading again after an hour. Nope, still around 5,000. Then I took my dc1700 outside the room. Outside the room, the pm2.5 reading was almost 20,000, perhaps even above that for some periods.

Indeed, it does appear that it, whatever it is, it has arrived.

Hmm, I hope this does not mean petrol 95 is now completely unavailable here? 4-5 months ago it was available at some gas stations, including the PTT-station near the American consulate. If is is no longer available in CM I will have trouble with my bike. :-(

I train with Team Leo.

I Built a free weight gym. Added a smith press and a sled....find I can keep my size and strength with very few exercises. ....pull ups are my forte.....lots of negatives.....diet as well. .....plus the Leo girls; not a joke....

Where do I sign up?

The other day, I had just finished a heavy 8 workout when a 160lb pencil neck emerged from the woodwork. He says, your grunting noises sound like those of a dying man!" I replied "You just had to come over here and make that stupid statement - now get lost!" He looked like Bambi caught in the headlights. Speechless, he made his exit.

Reminds me of the other day at the gym here. Some foreigner was deadlifting what could barely have been a 100kg, and not weighing much less himself. Pulling it up, and then dropping it from the full thigh height with a bang you could hear on the other side of the gym. He did that for all his 8 or so reps. Then the same on the next set.

Dunno what he was thinking he was doing. A competition-weight snatch? A clean & jerk?

Idiot was grunting loudly on every rep too. For a moment I thought somebody had forgot to mute the discovery channel on the tv.

At least the rude pencil neck had the courage to say it to my face.

Our old gym was cool until the great leotard invasion 0f 2002. Big signs went up stating "Grunting offends our members - please train quietly". Predictable, but very odd because the place was now permeated by aerobics music? The explanation was that the new posing mama's boy staff were catering to their girl friend's demands.

So tell me, what did the idiot say when you spoke your mind?

When I spoke my mind? It's not my gym so it's not up to me set the rules. If somebody's going to stand and grunt like a pig, or pick his nose for literally more than a minute in front of me, or keep dropping weights from height for no reason at all, I'll think what I think, but it's not my house. Were it my gym, I'd tell the numbfuck once, and the second time I'd terminate his membership and kick him out. But I imagine he'd tell me something like "get lost!", and I'd probably make my exit too. What else can one do? Not my gym so can hardly start arguing.

I've also trained at some cool gyms, though none as cool as yours, I'm sure. Those gyms even had some people competing at the national power lifting level. Had some people competing at the national Olympic weightlifting level also, both masters and young guys.

Didn't hear much grunting to tell you the truth, except for those 1RM attempts. Grunting so much on an 8-rep set that somebody has to come over and tell you to shut up? You'd be laughed out of the gym. Did have one of those guys at one of the gyms also, mind you. Even now I can still remember him. Many of us started smirking when he started on his sets. Didn't matter much what the exercise of the day was; a loud grunt per rep were sure to follow. An ex-boxer supposedly. Decent enough fellow, but when talking with him you got the impression that perhaps the boxing didn't go all that well and maybe he should have quit boxing a bit earlier than he did.

The other day, I had just finished a heavy 8 workout when a 160lb pencil neck emerged from the woodwork. He says, your grunting noises sound like those of a dying man!" I replied "You just had to come over here and make that stupid statement - now get lost!" He looked like Bambi caught in the headlights. Speechless, he made his exit.

Reminds me of the other day at the gym here. Some foreigner was deadlifting what could barely have been a 100kg, and not weighing much less himself. Pulling it up, and then dropping it from the full thigh height with a bang you could hear on the other side of the gym. He did that for all his 8 or so reps. Then the same on the next set.

Dunno what he was thinking he was doing. A competition-weight snatch? A clean & jerk?

Idiot was grunting loudly on every rep too. For a moment I thought somebody had forgot to mute the discovery channel on the tv.