Cannot discover an air filter amid the California fires? This is tips on how to construct your personal : NPR

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

The fires in Los Angeles have spewed smoke over the town for days. Air filters in houses will help, however what if you do not have one? NPR’s Alejandra Borunda covers well being and local weather change, and he or she got down to see if individuals may make filters themselves.

ALEJANDRA BORUNDA, BYLINE: The quick reply is sure. You may construct a DIY air filter in lower than half-hour with stuff that you simply most likely have already got in your own home.

ELLIOTT GALL: My title is Elliott Gall, and I’m an affiliate professor within the division of mechanical and supplies engineering at Portland State College.

BORUNDA: He is the designer of this air filter referred to as The Cocoon. Graduate scholar Brett Stinson explains.

BRETT STINSON: It is fairly easy. It is only a cloth filter. That is cotton batting and a field fan.

BORUNDA: Mainly, only a tube of material connected to a field fan. Gall says it is an previous know-how referred to as a baghouse filter.

GALL: And it primarily is a chunk of material that you simply drive air by that filters out particulate matter.

BORUNDA: To me, it seems to be like a blobby, puffy, 8-foot-long sausage. But it surely works virtually in addition to air filters you should purchase. Right here within the lab up in Portland, we load up a sealed bedroom-sized space with smoke and begin The Cocoon operating. Inside about 10 or quarter-hour, the air is just about clear. And I stay in Southern California. Proper now, the air is smoky. So this weekend, my associate and I got down to construct a Cocoon for ourselves.

That is Ali (ph) and Alex’s (ph) try to make a field fan filter.

Gall despatched me a PDF with directions. First, we observe down a regular field fan, like those they promote in nearly each ironmongery shop. Then you definitely want a giant piece of material that is 72″ vast.

This is the measuring tape.

That is essential as a result of that measurement will match neatly on the fan.

(SOUNDBITE OF MEASURING TAPE PULLING AND RETRACTING)

BORUNDA: Gall used cotton batting just like the stuff within quilts.

However we do not have that, clearly. I am not a quilter. What we do have – they usually say is OK – is sheets. Cotton or linen work greatest, they are saying.

We discovered an previous, full-sized flat sheet behind a cupboard. That was excellent. Greater ones may work, too, however you’d have to chop them down. So then we took the sheet, and we folded it in half lengthwise, like an enormous sizzling canine bun. After which I connected the 2 lengthy sides collectively very rigorously with duct tape.

(SOUNDBITE OF DUCT TAPE PULLING)

BORUNDA: You find yourself with this large, lengthy tube. And then you definately take some rubber bands or hair ties or no matter and twist them round one finish of the tube – such as you’re placing it in a bit ponytail.

(SOUNDBITE OF RUBBER BAND SNAPPING)

ALEX: That works.

BORUNDA: And now we’re on to the final step. We slip the open finish of the material tube across the fringe of the field fan and duct tape it in place.

(SOUNDBITE OF DUCT TAPE PULLING)

BORUNDA: However be sure you do not make this error.

I coated up the controls. In order that’s a bit bit foolish. That was my mistake. Do not do this.

Then we flip it on.

(SOUNDBITE OF FAN WHIRRING)

BORUNDA: Ooh. And we’ve inflated an enormous blue tube.

It poofs up and appears precisely like a type of slinky tubes little children crawl by. Gall says it really works greatest should you can run it in rooms that are not too large, like in a single day in a bed room, for instance. And for now, we have it operating nonstop.

For NPR Information, I am Alejandra Borunda.

(SOUNDBITE OF J. COLE SONG, “FORBIDDEN FRUIT”)

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