Dust motes

[MM]

Being right now in the middle of my annual spring clean (a little late this year...) I was struck by the dust motes in the air and how these swirl about when the window is opened. How, I wondered, could a slight vaccum be created in the room to encourage the motes to fly out of the window? Self-cleaning rooms! I experimented with opening and closing the door, leaving it slightly ajar, and so on.

So has anyone got any bright ideas as to how to "persuade" the room air to flow out of the window, taking the dust motes with it?

Perhaps it's better on some days than others, depending on the weather (low/high pressure)?

MM

[Mary Fisher]

Wouldn't crating a vacuum in the room cause motes from outside to fly in?

Mary who hasn't done the 2005 spring cleaning yet ...

[MM]

Positive pressure, then. What is it that the research labs maintain? I just need to encourage the air flow OUT of the window, rather than IN and whoosh, off fly the dust motes!

By the way, Hoovering is fine for cleaning the carpet, but the dust motes are floating about in the air.

Howze about attaching a Hoover to the window (from the outside), in some kind of a frame, and then switching on and leaving it for ten minutes? How long does it take for one complete change of air to occur? (In an average bedroom.) Sure, new motes would soon replace the removed ones, but the new ones wouldn't be quite so stale.

MM

[Dave Liquorice]

When doing particulary dusty DIY work, sanding, demolition or similar I run a vacum cleaner in the room with the suction pipe strapped up on the handle. Really does help clear the room of dust, far quicker than waiting for it to settle out and of course that which is trapped you don't have to clear up. B-)

[MM]

Do you run the cleaner while you are working, or after you have finished work?

MM

[Mary Fisher]

I didn't mention Hoovering. Nor carpets. We have neither.

If the sun doesn't shine in you won't see the motes so keep your curtains closed.

Sorted.

Mary

[Mary Fisher]

Spouse has a cleaner hose attached to the machinery so that it's close to the work and the majority of dust goes straight into it. the bag isn't inclosed in anything so it inflates when he switches on, the grandchildren love it.

I believe some machinery has automatic dust extractors. that's for rich wimps.

Mary

[The Medway Handyman]

You miss the point. If air leaves a room it has to be replaced by air coming back in. Otherwise you have a vacuum.

Well, a Henry has an airflow of 45 litres/second. If a bedroom is 4m x 4m x

3m thats 48 cubic metres. You can do the math from there! My head is starting to hurt :-)

[MM]

But the idea is to replace the air in the room (with the dust motes) with fresh(er) air containing fewer motes. That fresh air has to come in from somewhere!

48,000 litres / 45 = 1067 secs or 17 mins approx. The furniture will reduce that figure.

MM

[Mary Fisher]

Why should fresher air have fewer motes?

Mary

[Phil L]

Put a sign on the front lawn saying 'no motes allowed'

[Owain]

This of course assumes that external air is cleaner than internal air.

Why don't you use an ioniser to precipitate the dust on to a horizontal roller towel, with a timer and motor to wind the dirty section under the nozle of a vacuum cleaner with a HEPA filter periodically?

Owain

[MM]

How else would you define "fresh"? By definition, any air that is less contaminated can be deemed fresher, and here in the countryside I'm pretty sure the air /outside/ any house is preferable to the air /inside/. Are you perhaps just trying to nitpick?

MM

[MM]

And the roof? The sides? The back garden? No, your 'solution' needs more work!

MM

[MM]

I was trying to address the problem by using natural phenomena (e.g. low/high air pressure) rather than by huge investment in electricty-consuming gadgetry.

MM

[Zoinks]

Depends on the lab. If you're working with something very toxic (eg. radioactive), you maintain a negative pressure gradient so if there is a breach the hazard is pulled in rather than being spread around. You also have an airlock, is this what you intend to have on your living room 8c)

Since dust becomes statically charged as it falls, you could put a large electrical potential across floor/ceiling and make falling dust attracted to the ceiling. I think Millikan's oil drop experiment works along these lines. Not sure how you'd then safely get it off the ceiling though.

Z.

[Mary Fisher]

Not at all. 'Contaminated' isn't just about motes. Air quality isn't about motes. How are you contaminating the air in your house which isn't done outside? Motes are particles of all sorts of materials including skin, the air in the countryside is also full of particles - they might be different from those inside your house but they are there all the same.

Mary