Preparing for the next hazing

So the first wave of haze we had before this fortunate respite, most of us were caught with our pants down. Some more so than others. Many felt the Government and various national agencies did not respond fast enough or adequately. Not to mention that press releases certainly did not seem to help. The more important thing though is to be individually prepared so in that line of thought other than getting myself and family N95 respirators, I bought some 3M Filtrete air cleaning filters.

The idea behind it is to try and make the air in one's own room breathable in a more comfortable manner other than wearing an N95 indoors when the PSI goes to a crazy high of 300++. I tried this when the PSI reached 371 and 401 on those fate days. Also due to the nature of the N95, it is practically impossible to sleep with it and in fact one should NOT do it. Unless one wishes to challenge The Devil to a game of chess.

So 3M Filtrete air cleaning filters are made out of electrostatic fibres and hence supposedly filter more fine particles and in general better filters. They come in comes in 2 varieties. One is the standard one and come in a red packaging shown below.

This is the pre-cut type with self adhesives and comes with 4 pieces good for 2 air cons. Dimensions of each piece is 19cm x 30cm. The other type also in red packaging comes with 2 pieces but you would have to tape it yourself and comes in dimensions of 30cm x 60cm. I prefer the latter as it is more flexible for the task I use it for.

Below is the other one in blue packaging. It has added odour reducing carbon filter on it. I just got it yesterday when it was finally re-stocked. Previously I used the red one. I bought the blue to try out the difference and intend to when the next haze attack comes.

So what I did was to take the standard stand fan shown below for modding.

I added the filters to the back of it, held up with simple rubber bands.

Amazingly this works and the smell during those days were noticeably less or even missing from my room and I could sleep relatively well given all the yellow phlegm I was spewing out. You can also see it is starting to yellow even after 2 days of usage. So armed with the blue 3M Filtrete air cleaning filter, I am poised and ready for the next wave.

A company Nordic Pure has a handy guide showing different standards and what levels of particle filtration they do.

On a longer term front, I have purchased a Honeywell 17000 air purifier and will review when it arrive sometime late July. By then if the haze is around I would get to send it to its baptism of fire.