This is a common situation with VOC monitors. They may not be measuring ‘harmful’ VOCs, and can also be affected by humidity and other things. We recommend re-calibrating the VOC numbers outside – the numbers should be 0 when placing the monitor outdoors.
Carbon filters filter out some VOCs better than others. While all carbon filters can filter out things like odors, formaldehyde, benzene etc. They do better at filtering some VOCs more than others. It’s possible that the Qingping monitor is picking up a VOC that isn’t being filtered out by the carbon filter. In this case, how can you tell if there are dangerous VOCs in the air? For this we recommend the ’smell test’ – using your nose!
Finally, there is one other possibility why the VOC numbers are still high – that you have such a large source of VOCs in your house that the carbon filter has already filtered all it can and is saturated. Carbon filters typically last 2-3 months, but in areas with extremely high VOCs, this can drop to less than a week. To test this, you can take the carbon filter and smell it following the instructions in this article.
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