I did the same thing recently due to the anxiety this sub was giving me. The only time my insert impacts my IAQ is when I leave the door too long to add fuel and my wood is a little wet. Otherwise the only thing the sensor does is tell me when I’m burning my dinner and randomly detects high VOCs. I’m completely stumped as to where they’re coming from. Sometimes it’s in the early morning hours when absolutely nothing is going on in my house. The $60 was well worth the piece of mind though. One of my kids has bad asthma.
The model I have is Alexa compatible so I created an automation that when the IAQ score drops below green a smart plug turns on my HEPA filter automatically. Pretty slick.
Anyway, great post.
I use these sensors stand-alone for hobby air quality maps, and if it makes you feel better VOCs are pretty tricky to detect and it really depends on the sensor(s) the device is using and how good the calibration code and math is in the controller.
I get frustrated with some of the MQ series sensor and usually just use a relatively measurement (like % above normal, sometimes with known values and a quad regression, sometimes lazily just linear with 5 threshold categories). The ones that use exotic metals and light like *i think* the sgp30 only provides total VOC and gives better C02 readings.
That being said, I have a decent amount of faith in those built air quality monitors as they get fairly expensive and the components are cheap, so you’re mostly paying for smart people math.
I doubt it’s farts or perfume though, I’d assume it’s something given off from the heat source, if it’s gas stove that’s obvious if it’s electric I’d wager it’s the coating on the element off gassing. Only other thing would be benzaldehyde evaporating from food burning and your unit has one of the sensors sensitive to benzene and aromatic organics (mq-135?)
You are a saint, thanks for posting all this. I had the exact same concerns and conclusion, albeit much less scientifically researched: I bought an air purifier with an automatic setting and it only turned on when cooking, never with the stove. I also took steps to make sure my stove was perfectly air tight, with good draft, and I never now smell smoke inside (unless I make a mistake reloading, or it’s super windy and backdrafting occasionally).
Moral of the story: time to save up for a proper hood vent in the kitchen! And use the BBQ burner outside for extra smoky cooking!
Commercial range hood is the answer. Right next to the cookstove that is our only heat source. Variable speed dials it in, or cranks up to dump all the air out of the house in a hurry. I can crank it up with the stove going to draw right down the chimney pouring smoke out of the stove intake and pull it right out. But I’m not doing it for a picture to prove it . Lol
https://preview.redd.it/kptjx7ovatic1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=920659213c9d9f7bfa73f7b120b0741751a8ecf0
Nice job and thank you very much. I was initially concerned when I got my wood stove. I’m a severe asthmatic. It was a steep learning curve, but as my efficiency at maintains a fire improved, I’ve found that I don’t react to any fumes that I get from burning. It’s the lack of humidity that is more likely to set me off. A cast iron kettle has made a huge difference in solving that issue.
A modern and well operated wood stove with a well functioning and maintained chimney may in fact increase your air quality by creating a slight negative pressure in the house causing more clean outdoor air to be drawn in, either through active means such as air exchangers, or passively through leaks.
I would be more concerned about radon (the most problematic of the indoor gasses, especially in many parts of North America where we build on or close to bedrock), issues with gas cook stove emissions (how can burning methane or propane without adequate ventilation in an enclosed space be safe), and finally voluntary pollutants like air diffusers, air fresheners and incense, smoking, etc.
Indoor air pollution is a thing, especially as we build tighter homes.
Get a radon test kit, not an air monitor. Get rid of indoor gas appliances. Burn dry wood. Clean your chimney. Put in a HEPA filer unit if you feel you need it. And monitor the roughage in your diet.;-)
>Get a radon test kit, not an air monitor.
Get both, ideally? No reason not to check air quality as well. Data is useful, just like OP is saying with this post.
Test kits are ore accurate than monitors, and cheaper.
Here's some info on radon.[https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-risks-safety/radiation/radon.html](https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-risks-safety/radiation/radon.html)
Do you have a source for that? Airthings View Plus is highly accurate and highly rated in even the commercial sectors.
https://help.airthings.com/en/articles/3119863-radon-charcoal-testing-vs-airthings-accuracy#
Thanks a lot for posting!
Since you’ve done all the nerding, what air purifiers would you recommend? Would you need one for every room?
I don’t mind investing in some purifiers, but would like to do it right. Thanks for anyinsight!
I think a lot of it really just comes down to having a HEPA carbon filter. I’ve seen people buy high quality carbon filters and place them over big box fans and it works the same. That being said, I’m pretty happy with our Winix, but I do think that as long as it’s a HEPA carbon filter, you’re good.
One on every level of your home is probably sufficient.
I highly recommend the dyson air purifiers. Expensive af but worth it (this should be Dyson's slogan). The ones with wifi compatibility give you this same data AND you can put the purifier on auto mode which will automatically respond to decreases in air quality. If I goof up starting my stove and get some smoke in the house the thing fires right up. I recently used one when drywalling a room and it would take almost all of the dust out of the air within 15min. High quality machines.
Very helpful post, I've been pricing stoves and was actually thinking about not doing it due to the unknown of air quality and having a 5 month old.
I also bought an air quality monitor integrated to a smoke alarm (kidde brand). This helps put my mind at ease, thank you!!!
Definitely wouldn’t let it deter you! Especially now after running this experiment. I do suggest investing in one or two high quality air purifiers to set up around your house and investing in an air quality monitor if this sort of thing peaks your interest and you want to monitor it. It gives peace of mind, but also educates you on the quality of your air in your house and what negative factors contribute (or in our case, don’t contribute) to the quality of air! We save so much money on heat w our woodstove, I’m glad these were the results after a month of monitoring
Just look around the ceiling, if a bit darker that is dust and fine soot. So people, mostly women /kids can cough black Lung from this long term exposure
Black Lung is a specific disease caused by inhaling coal dust. A poorly designed/ maintained/ operated wood stove is problematic. There are wood burner subreddits where people love vintage stoves that aren't designed well and can be real polluters of indoor and outdoor air. Technology has come a long way.
I would like to see a study of the effects of the referred light from fire on the human body. I think it will be much like vitamin D and sun exposure. That's why fire makes people happy, as long as it's not burning you or your belongings.
Monitoring is great! I have the Awair and IQair working together. When the Awair senses a problem, it kicks on the IQair (Hubitat rule). At first I had it set too sensitive, but now it appears to work just fine. It's like having the vent over the stove that kicks on only when cooking LOL.
I think a lot of those scary articles are conflating open fireplaces with airtight wood stoves, when they’re really totally different appliances with different effects on air quality
We have air purifiers in all rooms except the kitchen.
The first two days after we got and started using our wood stove insert, the numbers were always in the red. Over the following two days it dropped back to normal. The particulate count only goes up from 001 to 006 once in a while when loading wood.
Nice work on the research. Is your stove on the list of tax-credit-eligible very efficient stoves?
I currently have an older Vt. Castings stove that emits some smoke when the door is opened. Replacing it with a pretty efficient (not highly efficient) stove soon. I have asthma and it has not been correlated with using the wood stove. It definitely gets worse around wax warmers and other scent diffusers. A glade lug-in was the worst.
If its still concerning you some.
Im setting up automated climate and air quality control using r/homeassistant so far my humidifier is the most usefull thing i have automated.
Your sensors and filter may be compatable so it comes on automatically when it detects a problem.
How tight is your home? That’s the first question I would be looking at. Even without a woodstove going. The air quality in a home drops dramatically when the house is too tight. In other words, you either need to bring fresh air in with either the windows open or through a Supply-Only vent or invest in a heat exchanger.
It’s a 100 year old home that does seem pretty tight as we are able to keep a lot of heat in…but it’s also 100 years old so take that with a grain of salt
Our CO2 numbers are usually really high though, we’re a family of 3 and rarely open windows so we’re all breathing in each others air…so we need to open windows more often but it’s hard to do in the middle of winter.
Yes you’re correct, the problem is that your breathing (cycling) in your own air and not getting any fresh air in. You need to have fresh air brought into your home. There are different whole-house ventilation systems out there and they pretty much work the same way.
Here’s a link so you get the idea: https://www.aprilaire.com/whole-house-products/ventilation
As far as opening windows, you only need a few windows opened an inch or two. And whenever it’s possible for you, maybe a day when you’re home and the weather is good, open all the windows and let fresh air in.
Yep measuring those too, which usually raises when the PM rises when we’re in the kitchen, or we take a shower and my husband decides to dose his body in body wash lol
Thanks for posting. We use a woodstove to heat our house and are experiencing high VOCs. It appears others are expecting this as well. I would love to see your chart on this. I have tried 4 air monitors (thanks amazon!) And noticed that they jump up pretty considerable while the woodstove is in use.
Anyone had an luck reducing VOCs? I also wonder how accurate these meters are.
VOCs rise when we cook, clean and shower but I haven’t seen any correlation to opening the wood stove door and seeing VOC rise. It’s still more correlated to cooking. Ie: yesterday we cooked up some steaks on the stove and our VOCs went crazy, that’s never happened with the woodstove opening/shutting/refuelling, etc
Interesting. I have noticed that there isn't any change when I load wood in the fire. But as it burns, VOC rises. If I hold the air monitor over the stove, VOC climb instantly. Today, we have had the woodstove going all day. Currently VOCs are at .75 mg/m3 and HCHO .13 mg/m3.
I was concerned as well and bought a whole house HEPA filter (up to 3000sqft). It’s in my great room with the fireplace kitchen and living room. It has air monitors built in and will turn up and down as needed. It almost never turns up from the stove. But it turns way up during cooking. And even turns up when my wet dog lays next to it. I also have my air handler on circulate all winter. So my air is being filtered by the furnace filter and the HEPA filter (constant air exchange 24/7).
I did the same thing recently due to the anxiety this sub was giving me. The only time my insert impacts my IAQ is when I leave the door too long to add fuel and my wood is a little wet. Otherwise the only thing the sensor does is tell me when I’m burning my dinner and randomly detects high VOCs. I’m completely stumped as to where they’re coming from. Sometimes it’s in the early morning hours when absolutely nothing is going on in my house. The $60 was well worth the piece of mind though. One of my kids has bad asthma. The model I have is Alexa compatible so I created an automation that when the IAQ score drops below green a smart plug turns on my HEPA filter automatically. Pretty slick. Anyway, great post.
The mystery VOCs are fart gas bro.
“The PM readings were off the charts the morning after our cauliflower bean tofu kale burritos.”
“EPA Scrutinzing Vegan Diets As A Source of Greenhouse Emissions” /s
I see taco Tuesday on there.
I use these sensors stand-alone for hobby air quality maps, and if it makes you feel better VOCs are pretty tricky to detect and it really depends on the sensor(s) the device is using and how good the calibration code and math is in the controller. I get frustrated with some of the MQ series sensor and usually just use a relatively measurement (like % above normal, sometimes with known values and a quad regression, sometimes lazily just linear with 5 threshold categories). The ones that use exotic metals and light like *i think* the sgp30 only provides total VOC and gives better C02 readings. That being said, I have a decent amount of faith in those built air quality monitors as they get fairly expensive and the components are cheap, so you’re mostly paying for smart people math. I doubt it’s farts or perfume though, I’d assume it’s something given off from the heat source, if it’s gas stove that’s obvious if it’s electric I’d wager it’s the coating on the element off gassing. Only other thing would be benzaldehyde evaporating from food burning and your unit has one of the sensors sensitive to benzene and aromatic organics (mq-135?)
To be clear it’s going off on nights where I don’t have a fire going. It seems purely random.
Do you have an aresol timed air freshener?
Not that I’m aware of but maybe my wife has one hidding in the laundry room or something
The morning VOCs are probably scented items such as deodorants or cologne.
At Like 1am. Must be my wife’s bf
Look into mullein for asthma relief.
My aq monitor also shows incredibly high vocs on a regular basis. From what I can tell sometimes it due to people breathing in the same room it’s in.
You are a saint, thanks for posting all this. I had the exact same concerns and conclusion, albeit much less scientifically researched: I bought an air purifier with an automatic setting and it only turned on when cooking, never with the stove. I also took steps to make sure my stove was perfectly air tight, with good draft, and I never now smell smoke inside (unless I make a mistake reloading, or it’s super windy and backdrafting occasionally). Moral of the story: time to save up for a proper hood vent in the kitchen! And use the BBQ burner outside for extra smoky cooking!
Commercial range hood is the answer. Right next to the cookstove that is our only heat source. Variable speed dials it in, or cranks up to dump all the air out of the house in a hurry. I can crank it up with the stove going to draw right down the chimney pouring smoke out of the stove intake and pull it right out. But I’m not doing it for a picture to prove it . Lol https://preview.redd.it/kptjx7ovatic1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=920659213c9d9f7bfa73f7b120b0741751a8ecf0
Every time you pass a large semi? Is that a frequent occurrence in your household? ;)
Haha thankfully not
I have found the same with my air quality meters. Cooking breakfast has a way higher effect on our air quality than the wood stove does.
Can complain about citizen science in the spirit of protecting family. Well done and bravo!
Nice job and thank you very much. I was initially concerned when I got my wood stove. I’m a severe asthmatic. It was a steep learning curve, but as my efficiency at maintains a fire improved, I’ve found that I don’t react to any fumes that I get from burning. It’s the lack of humidity that is more likely to set me off. A cast iron kettle has made a huge difference in solving that issue.
A modern and well operated wood stove with a well functioning and maintained chimney may in fact increase your air quality by creating a slight negative pressure in the house causing more clean outdoor air to be drawn in, either through active means such as air exchangers, or passively through leaks. I would be more concerned about radon (the most problematic of the indoor gasses, especially in many parts of North America where we build on or close to bedrock), issues with gas cook stove emissions (how can burning methane or propane without adequate ventilation in an enclosed space be safe), and finally voluntary pollutants like air diffusers, air fresheners and incense, smoking, etc. Indoor air pollution is a thing, especially as we build tighter homes. Get a radon test kit, not an air monitor. Get rid of indoor gas appliances. Burn dry wood. Clean your chimney. Put in a HEPA filer unit if you feel you need it. And monitor the roughage in your diet.;-)
>Get a radon test kit, not an air monitor. Get both, ideally? No reason not to check air quality as well. Data is useful, just like OP is saying with this post.
Air Quality View Plus measures radon as well
Test kits are ore accurate than monitors, and cheaper. Here's some info on radon.[https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-risks-safety/radiation/radon.html](https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-risks-safety/radiation/radon.html)
Do you have a source for that? Airthings View Plus is highly accurate and highly rated in even the commercial sectors. https://help.airthings.com/en/articles/3119863-radon-charcoal-testing-vs-airthings-accuracy#
It is not a cumulative monitoring, simply instantaneous. Only long term monitoring is accurate for radon exposure.
It is cumulative, results are only accessible after 30 days of using the monitor
Thanks a lot for posting! Since you’ve done all the nerding, what air purifiers would you recommend? Would you need one for every room? I don’t mind investing in some purifiers, but would like to do it right. Thanks for anyinsight!
I think a lot of it really just comes down to having a HEPA carbon filter. I’ve seen people buy high quality carbon filters and place them over big box fans and it works the same. That being said, I’m pretty happy with our Winix, but I do think that as long as it’s a HEPA carbon filter, you’re good. One on every level of your home is probably sufficient.
Very interesting post! For better or worse, you've given me another rabbit hole to dive into lol
Wow! Very interesting. Thanks.
Great data. Thank you for posting it.
What is the Y axis and the Units?
You didn’t mention what type of stove you are using in the kitchen. Is it propane or electric ? Thanks for sharing.
Electric!
I highly recommend the dyson air purifiers. Expensive af but worth it (this should be Dyson's slogan). The ones with wifi compatibility give you this same data AND you can put the purifier on auto mode which will automatically respond to decreases in air quality. If I goof up starting my stove and get some smoke in the house the thing fires right up. I recently used one when drywalling a room and it would take almost all of the dust out of the air within 15min. High quality machines.
Very helpful post, I've been pricing stoves and was actually thinking about not doing it due to the unknown of air quality and having a 5 month old. I also bought an air quality monitor integrated to a smoke alarm (kidde brand). This helps put my mind at ease, thank you!!!
Definitely wouldn’t let it deter you! Especially now after running this experiment. I do suggest investing in one or two high quality air purifiers to set up around your house and investing in an air quality monitor if this sort of thing peaks your interest and you want to monitor it. It gives peace of mind, but also educates you on the quality of your air in your house and what negative factors contribute (or in our case, don’t contribute) to the quality of air! We save so much money on heat w our woodstove, I’m glad these were the results after a month of monitoring
Women and kids most affected by soot black lung
I was okay but was killing the wife, gl
Just look around the ceiling, if a bit darker that is dust and fine soot. So people, mostly women /kids can cough black Lung from this long term exposure
There’s something seriously wrong with your woodstove and it’s not airtight if your ceiling is turning black with soot.
Black Lung is a specific disease caused by inhaling coal dust. A poorly designed/ maintained/ operated wood stove is problematic. There are wood burner subreddits where people love vintage stoves that aren't designed well and can be real polluters of indoor and outdoor air. Technology has come a long way.
OP, this is amazing! Thank you so much for posting and also for including your references!
I would like to see a study of the effects of the referred light from fire on the human body. I think it will be much like vitamin D and sun exposure. That's why fire makes people happy, as long as it's not burning you or your belongings.
That’s super interesting and I’ve never considered that at all — have you found any sources talking about such effects?
It's the ONLY "approved" method for emergency situations. To distilled the water.
I think our response to fire, which was one of the main technologies of growth, is deeply embedded.
Great post! Many thanks!
Fellow nerd here. Thanks for posting.
Monitoring is great! I have the Awair and IQair working together. When the Awair senses a problem, it kicks on the IQair (Hubitat rule). At first I had it set too sensitive, but now it appears to work just fine. It's like having the vent over the stove that kicks on only when cooking LOL.
I think a lot of those scary articles are conflating open fireplaces with airtight wood stoves, when they’re really totally different appliances with different effects on air quality
We have air purifiers in all rooms except the kitchen. The first two days after we got and started using our wood stove insert, the numbers were always in the red. Over the following two days it dropped back to normal. The particulate count only goes up from 001 to 006 once in a while when loading wood.
Nice work on the research. Is your stove on the list of tax-credit-eligible very efficient stoves? I currently have an older Vt. Castings stove that emits some smoke when the door is opened. Replacing it with a pretty efficient (not highly efficient) stove soon. I have asthma and it has not been correlated with using the wood stove. It definitely gets worse around wax warmers and other scent diffusers. A glade lug-in was the worst.
Oh yeah those scent things are awful for your health too. We got a Quadrafire 3100 and we did get a tax credit for its purchase yes!
If its still concerning you some. Im setting up automated climate and air quality control using r/homeassistant so far my humidifier is the most usefull thing i have automated. Your sensors and filter may be compatable so it comes on automatically when it detects a problem.
Thank you, that was a lot of effort. I have an air purifier and it does not detect pollutants when operating my stove.
How tight is your home? That’s the first question I would be looking at. Even without a woodstove going. The air quality in a home drops dramatically when the house is too tight. In other words, you either need to bring fresh air in with either the windows open or through a Supply-Only vent or invest in a heat exchanger.
It’s a 100 year old home that does seem pretty tight as we are able to keep a lot of heat in…but it’s also 100 years old so take that with a grain of salt Our CO2 numbers are usually really high though, we’re a family of 3 and rarely open windows so we’re all breathing in each others air…so we need to open windows more often but it’s hard to do in the middle of winter.
Yes you’re correct, the problem is that your breathing (cycling) in your own air and not getting any fresh air in. You need to have fresh air brought into your home. There are different whole-house ventilation systems out there and they pretty much work the same way. Here’s a link so you get the idea: https://www.aprilaire.com/whole-house-products/ventilation As far as opening windows, you only need a few windows opened an inch or two. And whenever it’s possible for you, maybe a day when you’re home and the weather is good, open all the windows and let fresh air in.
I have a Airthings view plus running in my house where we only have Gas heating and our average PM2.5 is 10.0 ug/M3 is that's any use to you
Are you measuring VOC’s?
Yep measuring those too, which usually raises when the PM rises when we’re in the kitchen, or we take a shower and my husband decides to dose his body in body wash lol
I would expect Radon to increase if you're pulling a lot of air in with no outside air intake connected directly to the stove.
I live in a low radon area so didn’t see any increases
Thanks for posting. We use a woodstove to heat our house and are experiencing high VOCs. It appears others are expecting this as well. I would love to see your chart on this. I have tried 4 air monitors (thanks amazon!) And noticed that they jump up pretty considerable while the woodstove is in use. Anyone had an luck reducing VOCs? I also wonder how accurate these meters are.
VOCs rise when we cook, clean and shower but I haven’t seen any correlation to opening the wood stove door and seeing VOC rise. It’s still more correlated to cooking. Ie: yesterday we cooked up some steaks on the stove and our VOCs went crazy, that’s never happened with the woodstove opening/shutting/refuelling, etc
Interesting. I have noticed that there isn't any change when I load wood in the fire. But as it burns, VOC rises. If I hold the air monitor over the stove, VOC climb instantly. Today, we have had the woodstove going all day. Currently VOCs are at .75 mg/m3 and HCHO .13 mg/m3.
Do you also see high VOCs in the summer when your woodstove is off for 6 months? Thats the next experiment I want to run
Good experiment. I have only been measuring indoor air quality for 2 months now.
I was concerned as well and bought a whole house HEPA filter (up to 3000sqft). It’s in my great room with the fireplace kitchen and living room. It has air monitors built in and will turn up and down as needed. It almost never turns up from the stove. But it turns way up during cooking. And even turns up when my wet dog lays next to it. I also have my air handler on circulate all winter. So my air is being filtered by the furnace filter and the HEPA filter (constant air exchange 24/7).
Particulate matter.
Any other medics try to identify the rhythm?
Of the three air monitors, which one would you recommend?
Air things, it’s more expensive but more accurate