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Re:Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game chang... by mastermedo on Sunday February 06, 2022 @12:22PM (#30234581)
Hm, I'm looking to eradicate smells from my house. Do air purifiers help getting rid of that old-house smell?
Re:Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game chang... by bitshaker on Sunday February 06, 2022 @04:23PM (#30237140)
As a quick solution, rent a commercial grade ozone generator.

Run it while you’re not in the house as in the concentrations they can put out it is damaging to lung tissue.

This is how hotels clear out smoke smells in rooms for instance.

Once you run it for a few hours, you can open things up and air it all out and the smells should mostly be gone unless there’s an active source of smell.

I did it while restoring an old house previously occupied by a smoker and hoarder. Would just run it at night when nobody was there and open the house in the morning when ready to get back to work on renovations.

It worked wonders.

Re:Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game chang... by fomine3 on Sunday February 06, 2022 @08:24PM (#30239003)
I bought dirt cheap portable ozone generator that also produces toxic amount of ozone for human. It worked for removing smells.
Re:Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game chang... by bredren on Sunday February 06, 2022 @12:58PM (#30235004)
Yes, if they have a charcoal filter. The Coway AP-1512 is a favorite to handle both odor and lower particulates.

I have three.

There are a number of past threads where people discuss their enthusiasm for this model. Have a search.

Re:Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game chang... by darkteflon on Sunday February 06, 2022 @04:38PM (#30237280)
Can second that - I have four of them, they run 24/7 on medium and pull ~8 watts at the wall each, assuming my meter is accurate. Picked them up after the last big discussion on air quality here a few months back. They are the Wirecutter pick, I believe.
Re:Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game chang... by bredren on Sunday February 06, 2022 @05:37PM (#30237749)
I keep an agent that monitors amazon pricing on the filters, and just buy a bunch when they dip abnormally low. Have you found any other ways to minimize cost on them? I have only used the ones sold by coway, as my pal tried some 3rd party and they were jenky.
Re:Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game chang... by darkteflon on Sunday February 06, 2022 @06:40PM (#30238281)
Depending on where you live, filters are a once/twice a year expense, I believe (I’m only a few months in). Honestly my advice would be: just be diligent about maintaining them. I vacuum out the filter and charcoal screen once every couple of weeks. Takes a few minutes, pretty painless. Amazing how much dust they pick up in normal operation.

Incidentally, which agent are you using for Amazon?

Re:Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game chang... by bredren on Monday February 14, 2022 @12:49AM (#30328788)
Missed this reply--I use camelcamelcamel for Amazon. I'm not sure if they are able to handle the click-to-get-discount check boxes, though. I also don't know how timely they are.

I've considered setting up Huginn to do this, but haven't explored it enough: https://github.com/huginn/huginn

Re:Ask HN: Any piece of hardware that was more of game chang... by parkingrift on Sunday February 06, 2022 @12:54PM (#30234965)
I can’t speak to that specifically, but they do help remove cooking smells.