Guess what! The Brookline Public Library has CO2 monitors that you can borrow! Very useful for checking out the ventilation in any indoor space that is ventilated (mechanically or naturally) with outdoor air. FREE!!!!!
https://brookline.minlib.net/Record/.b42432650
[#]Brookline #BrooklineMA #IndoorAirQuality #COVIDisAirborne #CovidConscious #CovidCompetent
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The Brookline Library has ten CO2 monitors; eight of them are currently on the shelf waiting for you to pick them up and take them home (or out and about) for a couple weeks.
Four in the main library in #BrooklineVillage
Two in the branch in #CoolidgeCorner
Two in the branch in #Putterham
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Some basics about CO2 ppm (parts per million):
There's some CO2 in outdoor air; my monitor is reading 433 right now in Washington Square. Think of that as the background level. Not great in terms of climate change, for sure, but this thread is about CO2 and indoor air quality/ventilation.
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Then I went inside to pick up takeout. Now the CO2 ppm reading is 577. That increase from the background level? That extra CO2 in the air in the restaurant might have come from the customers and the workers breathing out, and from the gas burners in the kitchen.
577 is higher than the outdoor number, but it's also quite low indeed for an indoor space.
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The CDC has a webpage about using CO2 monitoring to track and improve ventilation; they said to consider supplemental air filters when the CO2 ppm is above 800.
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This restaurant isn't near that level right now, but a lot of grocery stores, bookstores, restaurants, and also cars and homes can get CO2 ppm concentrations that are way higher.
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For example, I took this pic right after leaving a grocery store. That high above the background level? When I was in the grocery store, about 2% of the air around me was recently exhaled by the other people in the store.
I like people but I don't like them that much! Especially right now, when we know from CDC data that New England is still at the "very high" level of SARS-CoV-2 in our region's wastewater.
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Here's an interesting way to play with CO2 monitors in an interventional way, not just observational: go in your car, keep breathing, and play with environmental variables - windows open or closed, ventilation set to off/recirculate/outdoor air.
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So why does CO2 ppm matter?
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We can't smell or taste or hear high levels of CO in indoor air. But with these monitors from the library, we can find out -
Hey, if I have six people breathing in my living room, and I crack two windows, the CO2 numbers are as low as if I had one person breathing in the room with the windows closed
Or
Hey, this grocery store's ventilation system copes a lot better with the crowd at 8 pm than the crowd at 6 pm
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When I went to Burdick's in Coolidge Corner. I was wearing a respirator, but my friend who was drinking hot chocolate and eating cake wanted to leave when they saw these numbers, so we went for a walk.
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@kdnyhan no way! What a cool idea!
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@kdnyhan Thank you for this thread. It’s particularly necessary with the mainstream media (as in the AP article below) painting CO2 monitoring as “unproven” and implying that people using it to take action on indoor air quality are somehow desperate or hysterical instead of simply well informed and proactive.
https://apnews.com/article/covid-pandemic-masks-anniversary-34f2fb0ea729e71c0809295d3e62744b
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@kdnyhan Another use for CO2 monitors that’s underrated: making sure your indoor space or car isn’t so full of CO2 it’s affecting human cognitive performance. Students do significantly worse on tests when CO2 in the classroom is above 1500 ppm… if you’re driving your car with the HVAC on recirculate, it can easily exceed that even if you’re alone. Imagine what it does to your driving performance!
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@kdnyhan when we aren't using it for other stuff , I keep the CO2 monitor in my office so I can stave off that sleepiness
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@platypus @kdnyhan The first Thanksgiving after I got mine, I realized how hilarious it is that people still go on about tryptophan, and overindulgence, and this that and every possible explanation for sleepiness after Thanksgiving dinner ... except for the fact that you have triple the normal # of people in the house, you've been running the gas stove for hours, and CO2 is probably in the 2000s.
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@kdnyhan We have learned that our bedroom has terrible ventilation and therefore high CO2 (bad for sleep quality) so we now run a fan pointed at the door and the CO2 monitor proved this helped. etc.
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@kdnyhan any chance you have a link to that webpage? Seems like something I'd like to keep in my pocket for reference.
It is so cool they got monitors for library users, what a great addition!
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@Trenton_Hoshiko
This iteration
https://archive.cdc.gov/www_cdc_gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/improving-ventilation-in-buildings.html
Is archived now, and said "Readings above 800 parts per million (ppm) suggest that you may need to bring more fresh, outdoor air into the space."
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@Trenton_Hoshiko
And this related page, also archived now
https://archive.cdc.gov/www_cdc_gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/ventilation.html
"One potential target for the baseline concentrations that is used to represent good ventilation is CO2 readings below 800 parts per million (ppm).... If unable to get below your target CO2 value, increased reliance on enhanced air filtration (including in-room HEPA air cleaners) may be necessary."
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@kdnyhan I still remember the joy of traveling to Australia and finding a quiet airport food court away from the normal one (Chicago?) with levels of about 577 so I felt ok actually unmasking and eating
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@kdnyhan your grocery store number is wild to me though!
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@platypus
One time I went to pick up takeout and the reading at the hostess's desk was above 3000. Yikes yikes yikes I have not been back.
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@kdnyhan @platypus I bought one when I started a job with lots of travel, to work out when to mask and when not to…
… biggest takeaway was to open the window & mask up in taxis. And, although a huge concert hall full of people was surprisingly OK, mingling unmasked during interval was a big no-no.
https://librariansmatter.com/blog/2024/02/04/co2-on-a-plane-and-in-a-taxi-and-an-uber-and-a-concert/
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