Smoke, Smog, Dust 2018 Chiang Mai

[thaivisa63]

Do we know if the air is at least less worse in public places, malls, hospitals... How about gyms ? Can they use big ass air purifiers or at least filters on their aircons or would it be too inefficient ?

Also I produce an insane amount of bogeys EEWWW (odly mostly from right nostril) with sometimes blood in it. Sometimes it's too plugged for me to breath serenely.  I'm wondering if it's normal and simply a consequence of the air pollution or could it be something more ? I'd go see a doctor but I'm guessing right now they must all be over overbooked with more serious stuff and I'm maybe 90% confident it can only be caused by the pollution (i didnt have it a month back when i was in my home country) so i'd probably be wasting both the doctors time and mine.

[vivid]

[vivid]

3 hours ago, thaivisa63 said:

Do we know if the air is at least less worse in public places, malls, hospitals... How about gyms ? Can they use big ass air purifiers or at least filters on their aircons or would it be too inefficient ?

Also I produce an insane amount of bogeys EEWWW (odly mostly from right nostril) with sometimes blood in it. Sometimes it's too plugged for me to breath serenely.  I'm wondering if it's normal and simply a consequence of the air pollution or could it be something more ? I'd go see a doctor but I'm guessing right now they must all be over overbooked with more serious stuff and I'm maybe 90% confident it can only be caused by the pollution (i didnt have it a month back when i was in my home country) so i'd probably be wasting both the doctors time and mine.

 

Yes, they can use big ass air purifiers.  Basically big ass fan units with the huge and thick H12-H13 HEPA filters used in Cleanrooms., the metal cabinet is modified a bit so that it looks better in the house.  Some have additional functions incorporated for that extra touch for home use.

 

They have such products in China.  Not very expensive too, and overly loud for the huge airflow they can produce.  

Only "issue" is that a Cleanroom FFU would usually be a bit big for home use.  But if you can spare the space for it, it's just nice for the present conditions in N Thailand now, esp if the house is "leaky".   In fact if it's leaky, you might even need 2 units of that.

 

Conventional air purifiers do little in such conditions + a leaky house.  Or what you can do is to tape up most of the cracks and crevices.   But not overly airtight, do open the windows 3-4 times a day when the air quality is better to lower the indoor CO2 ppm else you might get headaches.

 

Example 

 

https://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.6.321c13f1jWHlF6&id=560058033118&ad_id=&am_id=&cm_id=140105335569ed55e27b&pm_id=&abbucket=12

 

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

27 minutes ago, vivid said:

 

Those numbers are INSANE.... insanely BAD!!!

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

4 hours ago, thaivisa63 said:

Do we know if the air is at least less worse in public places, malls, hospitals... How about gyms ? Can they use big ass air purifiers or at least filters on their aircons or would it be too inefficient ?

 

 

Despite Vivid's answer above, the truth is, pretty much none of the public places you mention in Thailand (apart from specialized scientific or medical rooms like operating rooms) are running anything other than regular air conditioning systems that basically do nothing to reduce PM2.5 pollution.

 

Businesses and others COULD install and use air purification systems, but those kinds of systems in a large public space setting are going to be very expensive to install and maintain, and probably very unlikely that any such space owners are going to undertake here. Especially when people (and outside air) are constantly going to be coming and going.

 

Your best bet, when things get bad like they are now, is to stay indoors at home, do your best to seal up leaky door and window seals, and buy and use a personal HEPA air purifier unit to clean the air in the space where you're staying. Obviously, to be effective, the purifier needs to be a unit properly sized in terms of output for the room space you're wanting to keep clean.

 

At least in BKK, you can buy from OfficeMate online at very low prices the door and window seal strips that have adhesive to attach to your window and door frames, and thus provide a better seal and reduce the intrusion of polluted air from outside, allowing your HEPA air purifier unit to more effectively do its job.

 

https://www.officemate.co.th/en/scotch-%E0%B9%80%E0%B8%97%E0%B8%9B%E0%B8%9B%E0%B8%B4%E0%B8%94%E0%B8%A3%E0%B9%88%E0%B8%AD%E0%B8%87%E0%B8%9B%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%B0%E0%B8%95%E0%B8%B9-%E0%B8%AB%E0%B8%99%E0%B9%89%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%95%E0%B9%88%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%87-%E0%B8%A0%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%A2%E0%B9%83%E0%B8%99-%E0%B8%82%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%A7-%E0%B8%AA%E0%B8%81%E0%B9%8A%E0%B8%AD%E0%B8%95%E0%B8%8A%E0%B9%8C-xn004211100-ofm9000486

 

 

This product does the job for both windows and doors. Each package handles about a single full door frame on the top and two side surfaces.

 

It may also be available for sale elsewhere, but I haven't been able to find any other local retailers for it.

 

 

[vivid]

Here's another video, showing how loud the big ass air purifier measured with a SPL meter, he also has  a Xiaomi ver 2 air purifier for comparison sake.

 

 

[vivid]

TallGuyJohninBKK is correct.

 

During the 2015 massive haze in Singapore (due to massive peat fires in Indonesia, their levels in central/southern Kalimantan, Borneo peaked at over AQI 2300 1-hr reading ????), i have measured PM2.5 levels with my laser particle counter (with a real laser module, not those IR modules which are not as sensitive etc) in public places especially shopping malls and even in a private hospital.  If i remember correctly, the levels in the malls didn't drop > 30% from outside ambient.  The filters that they used probably are some G3-G7 grade particulate filters?    In a private and expensive hospital, even the ward rooms are approx 70% that of external.  eg 200 ug/m3 on the meter,  300 ug/m3 external.  

 

It was only in the ICU wards of that particular private hospital did i manage to get single digits PM2.5 ug/m3.

 

The house aircon also does not provide much relief, at most approx 20% drop. 

 

In other words, forget it.  Now, for such particulate haze from burning (peat, biomass etc), you can get away with a H10 or even F8-F9 filter.  H11-12 would be nice.  H13-H14 grade is very nice, but seriously unnecessary.  What you want is flowrate, huge ass flowrates, like the above FFU can provide.  And to do that, you'd need huge ass units, huge ass filters.    A cheap H10-H11 filter utilised in a cleanroom FFU has higher CADR than a typical small Sharp A40, Xiaomi with H13.  

[vivid]

Additionally, it was found by the chinese that for environments like in China where there is extended durations of very high PM2.5, it is way more cost effective to use a big H10-H11 filter than vs a high-end H13 filter.     The filters do get clogged pretty fast, they found that they had to discard the filters only after around 2-3 weeks when levels hit nearly 1000.  The difference in measured PM2.5 in the house between the filters is pretty negligible, a person even with COPD, allergic rhinitis, sinusitis definitely would not feel the difference, neither would a pax with stroke risk, heart attack risk etc.

 

  Imagine you are using a few air purifiers in the house, all with H13, and your house is leaky.   ????

 

Their H10-H11 DIY filters are pretty cheap, only about usd 4-5, excluding international shipping.  I am using them here in Singapore.  I use 2 pcs every year when there is no haze, coz i found that there would be smells emanating from the filter once i go over 12 months.  I run multiple air purifier units here, so cost is definitely a concern over the long run.

 

 

A picture is worth a thousand words. 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

41 minutes ago, vivid said:

  A cheap H10-H11 filter utilised in a cleanroom FFU has higher CADR than a typical small Sharp A40, Xiaomi with H13.  

 

The question posed, I believe, is what can the average resident in CM or elsewhere do to escape/avoid the current very high air pollution levels.

 

In Thailand, for the average consumer, the device choices available basically come down to a variety of HEPA class home air purifier units sold through normal retail channels. The China and Singapore stuff is interesting, but it's not products that the average consumer is going to be able to readily acquire and use here.

 

For the people who aren't fleeing the region and need to remain, the question is what can they do right now to make their homes liveable/breathable in some reasonably quick and cost-effective manner.  To me, HEPA air purifier units sold here combined with sealing leaky doors and windows seems to be the most obvious and available solution.

 

When the AQI levels outside are exceeding 300 or even 400, I want a full HEPA or even HyperHEPA filtration system in my purifier to take as much bad stuff out of the air as possible, because no matter how many remedial sealing steps I take at home, the bad air from outside is still going to be infiltrating inside.

 

 

[mike787]

It's just like coke!...inhale and enjoy!  ????

[orang37]

11 minutes ago, mike787 said:

It's just like coke!

 

Then, why do I feel sick, and sluggish, not hyper ? Am I not inhaling deeply enough ?

 

o:37;

[cmsally]

A lot of local people are complaining of headaches and nausea.

I am the only person that I know of in my immediate area who is running an air filter. We have one fairly well sealed room running an AC with hepa filter as well as an air purifier. This is the only way I am able to stay here. Spending most of the time in the sealed room. Air pollution is ridiculously off the scale and govt. either incompetent or uninterested , or both.

[Sparkles]

In 10 years in CM I have never felt so nauseas,with headaches,sneezing and general lethargy.

 

I felt sicker yesterday,when i saw tankers sucking water out of the moat and spraying it into the air back into the moat.

 

This is the Governments agencies response to what is a major health issue,shame,shame on them.

 

Sadly staying inside is not an option for most people

[brommers]

The good news is that from 11am to 5:30 pm the aqi has halved today!

The bad news is that we STILL have the worst air quality on the globe.

 

And all that our invisible leaders can do is spray polluted filthy moat water into the air! Despicable, incompetent and irresponsible authorities need to be removed from office. But we know that will not happen.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

1 hour ago, cmsally said:

We have one fairly well sealed room running an AC with hepa filter as well as an air purifier.

 

So you have one of the fancier newer AC models that supposedly have their own HEPA filtering built-in?

 

What model did you get, and how's its performance in terms of filtering? 

 

Normally, I wouldn't think you'd need to be running BOTH a HEPA AC AND and HEPA air purifier....  Although I know the levels there have been dire...

 

[cmsally]

I have been running ACs with the 3m filtrete. Sorry didn't make that very clear!

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

20 minutes ago, cmsally said:

I have been running ACs with the 3m filtrete. Sorry didn't make that very clear!

 

Ahhh... OK!  

 

Covering the entire surface of one's air con OEM filters with Filtrete material doesn't achieve HEPA filtration, and even less so if you're covering 80-90% as is often suggested, to help allow AC air flow. But, it's certainly better than just running the AC with its OEM filters only.

 

 

[Happystance]

1 hour ago, Sparkles said:

Sadly staying inside is not an option for most people

Unless you have an air-tight sealed vault which you never open and excellent filtration, staying inside is the ostrich approach.

[vivid]

2 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

The question posed, I believe, is what can the average resident in CM or elsewhere do to escape/avoid the current very high air pollution levels.

 

In Thailand, for the average consumer, the device choices available basically come down to a variety of HEPA class home air purifier units sold through normal retail channels. The China and Singapore stuff is interesting, but it's not products that the average consumer is going to be able to readily acquire and use here.

 

For the people who aren't fleeing the region and need to remain, the question is what can they do right now to make their homes liveable/breathable in some reasonably quick and cost-effective manner.  To me, HEPA air purifier units sold here combined with sealing leaky doors and windows seems to be the most obvious and available solution.

 

When the AQI levels outside are exceeding 300 or even 400, I want a full HEPA or even HyperHEPA filtration system in my purifier to take as much bad stuff out of the air as possible, because no matter how many remedial sealing steps I take at home, the bad air from outside is still going to be infiltrating inside.

 

 

 

 

Well, i don't know how's the retail and online mail order scene over there in N Thailand (you guys have your local versions of lazada/shoppe?), but if we take the Xiaomi air purifier as a ballpark, from a practical perspective most homes would need at least 2 units.  1 for the living room and 1 for the bedroom.  Seal the other rooms.  

 

Another very important thing is the availability of air purifiers.  Every time there is severe haze, folks rush to get air purifiers and stocks get depleted fast.   Of course if you can get 1 single entry level CADR 200 m3/hr air purifier, it's still better than nothing.

But for pax in the sensitive groups with health issues, it really isn't enough.

 

Pratically and preferably you might even need 3 units at those levels i see on aqicn at night sometimes.  This is because you can move the APs around and if you need to have a good night sleep, those 3 units moved into the bedroom need to be operating at a medium-low kind of sleep.  ie your 300 m3/h air purifier effectively becomes like 120 m3/hr.  

 

The haze in N Thailand isn't new, so isn't haze in other south east asian countries like Singapore or Malaysia (started since the 1990s).  so if any of you folks are going to be staying there for good, several good air purifiers are a must.  The thing is that it does not get till such serious levels annually, there were previous bad years in N Thailand, iirc it was also very bad in what....2010 and 2016 or something?  Then 2017/18 were relatively good years, and then 2019 the N Thailand season was off to a somewhat late start.

 

So it's like an emergency prepping kind of thing.  

 

 

[vivid]

3M Filtrete

 

Here's some raw data on my laser particle counter for you to digest.  HOwever, the PM2.5 levels were not done in a hazy condition, ie external loading is not that high.  Hence i do not know what is the exact result when external is say 200-300 ug/m3 on the meter.  

Also, my room is pretty airtight, windows have double rubber seals, the only gap is the one under the door.  ????

 

It doesn't matter if my meter is not absolutely accurate, we are just looking at relative levels, percentage drops.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[vivid]

If your aircon FCU has low airflow /dirty etc.....it's better to run it with a fan. 

 

Actually, scratch the idea on putting such filters at the FCU.  In quite a few cases it might not be so good for the airconditioner and you end up creating costly aircon issues later if you are doing it for more than a week.  Just use the fan.

 

Also, at such high levels presently, in my and a few other's experience, try to change out the filters once every 3-4 days.   Else the filtration performance is not going to make much of a difference.

This can't be helped with regards to such electrostatic filters with a relatively small filtration area/thickness.

 

Using the below as a ballpark, i think you guys probably need at least 5pcs preferably 10pcs of that scattered around the living room and bedroom.  

 

I have been studying the past 5 days trend of the stations in N Thailand, seems like it's getting worse day by day.   Of coz, it might plateau out, it might even go down a little, lets see what happens over the weekend. 

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

4 minutes ago, vivid said:

 

Well, i don't know how's the retail and online mail order scene over there in N Thailand (you guys have your local versions of lazada/shoppe?), but if we take the Xiaomi air purifier as a ballpark, from a practical perspective most homes would need at least 2 units.  1 for the living room and 1 for the bedroom.  Seal the other rooms.  

 

 

That's exactly what I have and do at home in BKK -- one large Honeywell HEPA purifier from the U.S. in our large living space area, and a smaller Sharp HEPA unit from Thailand that runs in our main bedroom. At night, the bedroom unit's on, and during the day, the living space unit is on.

 

The units are portable, so a person could move their unit from bedroom to living area every day if necessary. But in our case, and for others too, our bedroom area is much smaller than the living space area. So the bedroom purifier wouldn't do the job for the living space area.  And the living space purifier would be overkill for our bedroom space, where a smaller and quieter unit is preferred.

 

Another thing to make sure on, in any air purifier purchase here, is that you know exactly how and where you're going to find replacement HEPA and other filters for any particular unit. In a lot of cases, the places that sell these units don't even carry replacement filters for the units they sell, so they'll fob you off on 3rd party vendors who may or may not have them in stock, now and for the future.

 

Unless you can find and get replacement HEPA filters for an air purifier unit over the long haul, you're going to have wasted your purchase money.

 

[somtum16]

Currently in CM with a two-month-old child. This air pollution is really worrying me. We are keeping her indoors with locked windows but I know that's not enough. Does anyone know where I can quickly find an air purifier or some 3M filtrete in CM? I searched Homepro, SIAM TV, and the 3M store but no stock in any of them.

 

There appears to be purifiers available online from Lazada but never ordered from them and no idea how long they take to deliver. With how bad the air is now, I'd like to sort something out within the next 48 hours. 

[vivid]

54 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Another thing to make sure on, in any air purifier purchase here, is that you know exactly how and where you're going to find replacement HEPA and other filters for any particular unit. In a lot of cases, the places that sell these units don't even carry replacement filters for the units they sell, so they'll fob you off on 3rd party vendors who may or may not have them in stock, now and for the future.

 

Unless you can find and get replacement HEPA filters for an air purifier unit over the long haul, you're going to have wasted your purchase money.

 

 

Regarding replacement HEPA filters, that's actually the intention of my previous first few posts on air purifiers.

 

I am living in Singapore, a few of us are in the sensitive and susceptible group and operate air purifiers every day.  During the 2015 serious and prolonged haze, i was operating as many as 9 air purifiers around in my whole house with close to 2000 m3/hr of airflow filtration, but of course due to noise concerns realistically the sustained figure is more like 700-800 m3/hr. 

I started with just 3 APs in June, but over time it became clear that we needed many more so that we can filter the whole house, as the haze became prolonged and i procured many more in July and August.  The heaviest haze hit in September and October and didn't completely clear until early November.  If we were just to be confined to 1 master bedroom or 1 living room with those 3 small APs (150-200 m3/hr) it'd really be a very sad sight for us.   After that i sold some units and currently i am operating 4 units.

 

As for replacements, we get from China Taobao the H10-H11 grade filters.  I have measured the performance, they filter around 92-95% PM2.5 haze particles.  My H13 Samsung and Sharp filters for example can filter over 99%.  The China filters flow about 30% less airflow and cost about usd 4-5.  However, if i use originals, i'd run over usd 200 annually, probably closer to usd 400 should that year be hazy, simply because i'd need to change out all the filters immediately after the haze season.

 

  So in the long run, it's really better to use lesser grade filters especially in an environment that's quite often impacted by haze (eg in N Thailand, Indonesia, etc),

To cut a very long story short,  i found that the difference in real life is not that big, but the impact to the wallet is great.

 

Of course, if one can afford originals, then go ahead and spend the money, no worries.  It's just a piece of information and personal experience that i'd like to share.

 

 

And anyway for the benefit of other pax wearing N95 masks even with models equipped with exhaust valves, do be mindful that you cannot really wear this over the long term like > 3hrs?   One cannot use them to replace air purifiers at home even if you are able to use change out and use 2 pcs daily.  Esp for pregnant ladies, those with COPD issues, elderly.  Or those who are susceptible to migrane.  The higher CO2 levels might solve the PM2.5 issue but create other new issues....so it isn't really a solution.  Best is to stay indoors and preferably with some sort of filtration.

 

And lastly, for children, make sure that you can get the smaller versions that are specifically made for children. 

Over here in Singapore, we have a particular brand here called Air+ Smart mask that has 3 sizes.  S for children around age 3-6.  M for children maybe 7 to teens.  L for teens/adults.  And in any case, fit testing it properly is very important, else any small leaks at the sides negates the effectiveness a lot and very easily.

 

I believe there are some small sized N95s from 3M, like the 8110S.  But only 1 small size.

 

Just for reference, i know it's next to impossible to get this there.  MAybe could get someone to bring it over from Singapore or what.  And anyway the electrical micro ventilator is optional.  It's basically just a valved N95 grade respirator.

 

 

 

 

[vivid]

1 hour ago, somtum16 said:

Currently in CM with a two-month-old child. This air pollution is really worrying me. We are keeping her indoors with locked windows but I know that's not enough. Does anyone know where I can quickly find an air purifier or some 3M filtrete in CM? I searched Homepro, SIAM TV, and the 3M store but no stock in any of them.

 

There appears to be purifiers available online from Lazada but never ordered from them and no idea how long they take to deliver. With how bad the air is now, I'd like to sort something out within the next 48 hours. 

 

I feel for you, i'd really like to help you guys but i can't.  ????   My kid was just a few months old too in 2013 when i believe the PM2.5 possibly peaked at 600-800 ug/m3 range.  I can't say for sure coz we only had PM10 then, but guesstimating it should be around that level.

 

There was a lot of panic, whenever we heard that X number of boxes of N95 was available at Y location pharmacy, the rush was crazy.  The military was actually activated to help in the distribution of respirators as new stocks arrived, but luckily the dense haze quickly disappeared on the 5th day.

 

So for you folks in N Thailand especially, do remember to do adequate emergency prepping for the future.  Not just "forget about it" when the rainy season comes.  I know that's just human nature.

 

 

 

 

[vivid]

This afternoon.

 

 

[vivid]

http://www.weather.gov.sg/warning-haze-information/

 

 

[vivid]

You can check out the past week or so of historical data in the link above, the areas of moderate and dense haze.

 

Ok i shall post it here again for better clarity. 

http://www.weather.gov.sg/warning-haze-information/

 

It's escalating for sure.

[Genmai]

Bit the bullet today and told the missus to close up shop and send our 4 staff home indefinitely and get the first available tickets to Bangkok. We're going to lose money for sure from loss of business but after 4 days of this pure insanity it was impossible to tolerate any longer. Chest pains, coughing, itchy eyes, feeling like a flu is coming on, exhaustion, etc. How can I run a business hunched over an air purifier? Ridiculous.

The most unbelievable thing was that no one seems to give a ****. I hardly see anyone with a mask on, if they have one it's just a cheap surgical one. While we're waiting for the taxi there's a party some houses down. Boom boom boom boom wailing singing and drinking under the toxic sky. I N S A N E is what these people are.

Only been in BKK for a few hours now but my lungs are already thanking me for it. Everyone who can get out needs to get on a plane and go, there's nothing in Chiang Mai worth losing your life over.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

2 hours ago, vivid said:

http://www.weather.gov.sg/warning-haze-information/

 

 

 

That's a very interesting and useful map... And it explains why the North is getting killed at present, while BKK for now is not so bad...

 

It also suggests the heart of the emissions problem is homegrown here, and not mainly trans-border as some apologist folks like to suggest.