{"id":529,"date":"2019-01-28T17:52:40","date_gmt":"2019-01-28T17:52:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/mn\/?p=529"},"modified":"2019-06-30T13:32:17","modified_gmt":"2019-06-30T13:32:17","slug":"does-closing-the-windows-starve-us-of-oxygen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/mn\/en\/blog\/does-closing-the-windows-starve-us-of-oxygen\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Closing the Windows Starve Us of Oxygen?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Air purifiers work best in a closed room environment and\u00a0this worries some who are concerned that there wouldn\u2019t be enough oxygen coming in\u00a0when all doors and windows are closed. Yet recent tests in a real apartment \u2014 with as many as seven people in a small room \u2014 show less than 1% change in oxygen levels in a closed room.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Fears of Low Oxygen<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

Fears of low oxygen levels are easy to find. Quora user Arghya Roy, says a\u00a0<\/span>closed room running air condition leads to low levels of oxygen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Playing on this belief, companies rushed in with products that fill this supposed void. For example, the popular Three Dad\u2019s purifier claims to solve the oxygen problem by using \u201csubmarine technology\u201d to create oxygen.<\/p>\n

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The logic is simple: The room is closed, humans breathe in oxygen, so oxygen levels should decrease over time. Or should it not?<\/p>\n

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The Experiment<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Smart Air tested this question by tracking oxygen levels with an iBrid MX6. We used the Smart Air office as an extreme testing site because the humble Smart Air office has seven people packed into just 34.5m\u00b2<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>room.<\/p>\n

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On top of that, the office windows and doors are sealed with insulation tape to prevent polluted air from getting in (the office has no central air system too). We tracked oxygen levels throughout normal workdays, keeping the door shut except for when people left and came back from lunch at midday.<\/p>\n

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Findings<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

Even in these extreme conditions, oxygen levels showed almost no change. By the end of the day, oxygen levels had dropped by 0.3%. Simply put, humans don\u2019t take in as much oxygen as we think we do. Based on oxygen alone, estimates are that\u00a0<\/span>an average person could survive in a completely sealed room for 12 full days<\/a>!<\/p>\n

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The Change Is in Carbon Dioxide<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

While oxygen levels are pretty much constant over the day, what does change is the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. Tracked by the Air Visual Node, carbon dioxide levels went from 0.08% to 0.35% \u2014 more than tripling over the course of a day!<\/p>\n

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How Can Carbon Dioxide Triple when Oxygen Remains Unchanged?<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

If humans breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide, how can one remain almost unchanged while the other skyrockets? The key is that regular air has a lot more oxygen than carbon dioxide. Oxygen constitutes about 20%, while carbon dioxide is only 0.038% of the air. Thus, carbon dioxide is capable of tripling from such a small number, while oxygen is mostly unchanged.<\/p>\n

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Carbon Dioxide Can be Harmful<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

Although we don\u2019t have to worry about running out of oxygen, too much carbon dioxide can be harmful. At levels in the Smart Air office during the test (1,000-3,500PPM),\u00a0<\/span>people felt drowsy<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>and may even\u00a0<\/span>perform worse on cognitive tests<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The Simplest Ways to Lower CO2\u00a0Levels:<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

#1\u00a0 Open your windows from time to\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>time<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

Yes, periodically opening the windows will let in polluted outdoor air, but our tests have found that purifiers, take\u00a0the Cannon<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>and\u00a0<\/span>Blasts<\/a>\u00a0for example, can\u00a0<\/span>cut PM2.5 levels by 50% in just 10 minutes<\/a>\u00a0after closing the windows.<\/p>\n

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#2\u00a0 Leave\u00a0the windows opened, just\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>a tiny gap<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

If you have a strong purifier, open the windows by just a bit and leave it there. Our tests have found that\u00a0<\/span>purifiers can still be effective even when the window is left opened<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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#3\u00a0 Get a place with a central air<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0system<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

Choose an office or apartment with a central air system that brings in outdoor air (hopefully purified ones too). If your apartment or office, like many of the ones in China, doesn\u2019t have a central air system, you can get an air exchange system installed. But it is expensive.<\/p>\n

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Bottom line:<\/h3>\n

In indoor spaces, oxygen levels are not of much concern even though CO2\u00a0can be. So the next time you come across a marketing hype about purifiers that claim to create oxygen, you know you don\u2019t quite need that. Breathe safe (and smart) folks!<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Air purifiers work best in a closed room environment and\u00a0this worries some who are concerned that there wouldn\u2019t be enough oxygen coming in\u00a0when all doors and windows are closed. Yet recent tests in a real apartment \u2014 with as many as seven people in a small room \u2014 show less … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4580,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/mn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/mn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/mn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/mn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4580"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/mn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/mn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":711,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/mn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529\/revisions\/711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/mn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/mn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/mn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}