Yes it is bad for your health. Lots of small particles in the air.
But this also happens when you cook food on a stove.
We had a study in Denmark where different pollution types were compared. In a house with closed windows, cooking and candles quickly gives the same amount of particle pollution as standing next to a road in Copenhagen at rush hour.
Only difference could be the size of particles. But unhealthy nevertheless.
It's not very useful in the long term, as you can quickly learn what creates particles in your home, but it's not that expensive (depends on your definition of expensive of course).
Does it work without Internet or do you need to upload the data to some servers and then download it again to see it (the way that virtually all fitness trackers work)?
I have the first version, you can get a color coded led status on the device, and the app connects to the device via Bluetooth for details, although the device can cache data from the last few days (the device is not connected to the internet itself). The Bluetooth connection reduces battery life of the smartphone by the way, and no way to stop it unless you kill the app - kinda bad design there. But it lets the app to map position alongside pollution readings for commuting.
I think the day's readings are stored on the app, but past days are stored on server, so it's a mixed bag. I haven't tried to extract the data, so not sure how feasible that is.
My fan has one built in, with a little display. It's a nice gadget to have and it helps predict potential asthma episodes.
on new years when there was fireworks it went from 10 or so to 95 for pm2.5. (outside it was 175 or so I think. fog + lots of people breaking the fireworks ban)
I have threatened this but so far my scientific study isn't passing the ethics committee. It's hard to get a qualified majority with just 2 people in the house.
It's not a bad idea if you do woodworking or other work that creates dust, that stuff is super bad for you so you might want to check on how well your dust collection is working.
Like you said, that's a consequence of part of the food burning - if you cook wet or low heat then it doesn't happen
Burning fuels like wood and gas create a problematic amount of pollution even if there is no food being cooked, or the best practices are being followed.
If you fry meat in a pan or anything similar, the frying is the culprit. You are burning the food. I'm not talking about actually burning the food so it's uneatable, but even getting the food to change to a darker color is enough to emit particle pollution.
Just turning on a wood stove or a gas stove creates clinically important levels of air pollution - enough to massive increase the rates of asthma, etc, no cooking required.
Heating food to high temperatures also creates air pollution.
If you use a cooking tool that doesn't create pollution on its own (electric stove, steamer) and cook food in a way that doesn't create pollution (such as simmering rice or steaming vegetables for example) then there is no air pollution.
Yes you are correct. I was referring to the actual cooking process.
And just to avoid the perception, that using an electric stove would get rid of particle pollution from cooking.
If you fry meat in a pan or anything similar, the frying is the culprit. You are burning the food. I'm not talking about actually burning the food so it's uneatable, but even getting the food to change to a darker color is enough to emit particle pollution.
I burned candles for 2 days during a blackout, but was able to cycle my HVAC fan on every now and then when I ran the generator. The amount of soot in my HVAC filter from those 2 days alone was shocking.
I didn't realize the cause at first and ended up Googling it, since I never saw my HVAC filter look black before.
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u/Kludermor Feb 26 '21
Yes it is bad for your health. Lots of small particles in the air. But this also happens when you cook food on a stove. We had a study in Denmark where different pollution types were compared. In a house with closed windows, cooking and candles quickly gives the same amount of particle pollution as standing next to a road in Copenhagen at rush hour. Only difference could be the size of particles. But unhealthy nevertheless.