solarbird | high-volume air-exchange defeats covid (Reply)

Sphagnum Moss · @moss_sphagnum · 11:38 PM · Jun 16, 2022
I had a chance to go to this @VSOrchestra Orpheum Theatre built after the Spanish Flu to be *pandemic proof* and WOW. This ventilating system is FULLY OPERATIONAL. Huge crowd 1/n
[IMAGE showing CO₂ at 518ppm]

I rebuilt my house's HVAC to do this (filtration+air exchange) before COVID, for reasons.

Holy shit has it worked out for me.

This cuts COVID spread from indoor to near-outdoor levels.

We can and should do this everywhere.

Let's talk about the reasons. They were:

1. Allergies (I'm very allergic to grass pollen) and smoke season (which from a solution point of view is the same problem)

2. Cooling, in summer

Let's talk about #2 in particular.

Our house is really difficult to keep cool in summer because of where and how it's built. Lots of windows facing unobstructed east on a hill. We got toasty.

We'd been using two wheelabout ACs and attempting to cool down at night with fan-forced venting. It didn't really work.

I put a heat-pump Mitsubishi cooling system (240V AC) in on the top floor only, a bunch more ducting, full-time filtered air circulation (for allergies and smoke season) and, most importantly, a lot of temperature sensors in inside-outside pairs.

Beforehand, the house upstairs would be 10°F or more over outside.

Afterwards, well, this is with the air conditioning OFF:

We weren't even running the air-exchange cooling at full, because if we did, it would get TOO COLD INSIDE THE HOUSE.

In the SUMMER.

Again: that's with the air conditioning turned OFF, doing opportunistic cooling via air-exchange at the right times, as possible.

So with much better results, and much better indoor air quality at all times, and a much bigger AC unit in place, used when needed...

...our electricity bill went down by 40%.

In September, anyway.

That June had a record-smashing heatwave. The whole month was monstrous.

The hottest any part of the partially-AC house got in the areas with NO air conditioning was... 79°F.

And again, year over year, our electricity bill went... down.

That was pre-COVID. Post-COVID?

We had a housemate come home with COVID after visiting family.

He isolated. Filtration on, air exchange maxxed, but still, same house.

Nobody else got it.

Air exchange. Filtration. It works, it's cheaper, and it's better.

And we could do this EVERYWHERE.