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I recently stayed in an apartment that didnt have central air so I created a corsi-rosenthal box since the smoke from the Canadian wildfires were so bad.
After 30 days of continuous use, with very minimal periods of it being turned off, this is what the filters look like!
It's disgusting yet also so satisfying to see the filters get darker from debris, dust, and dirt.
Edit: typos
These are great, but if you’re looking for something slightly less bulky, there’s a dude selling kits online using pc fans. I’ve got two and they’re pretty much a CR box in its final form. Kits come with laser cut panels, fans, grates, etc. only need to supply two filters. Way quieter than a box fan. They’re a bit pricey but worth since they can pretty much be placed anywhere.
google clean air kits.
I dont mean airflow as in rate of air moving through the fan, i mean it as in volume of air being filtered.
I'm just amazed it apparently took two people to think of taping 4 air filters together with a fan on top.
Curious why it's not 5 filters with some little toilet paper tubes or something for legs. Was it found that the fifth filter is diminishing returns?
Sounds like an argument that would take at least two meetings and a dozen emails if this were done by a company lol.
They may not have been the ones who first thought of it, but the first people to publish research that shows that taping 4 air filters together with a fan works decently compared to other, non-DIY filters (where "worked decently" means does a good enough job that it's worth doing if you want a filter but can't/won't buy or build a more complex filtering system, even if it isn't as good as "proper" filtering systems)
(Tangent: I'm reminded of the "Cox-Zucker machine", a random maths thing that Cox and Zucker made together because when Cox and Zucker met at university, they realised that their names, when combined in the traditional, alphabetical order, sounded "delightfully obscene". )
I totally did not realize how much real science was behind these things. I mean this design is so simple and obvious, it seems like something I would throw together because it just looks like it “should” work. And according to the research I just read they are very efficient and effective. Super cool!!!
I think the science comes in showing that it does actually work. Like, this is so simple of an idea that I would be skeptical of if it would work if I had had the idea by myself. I'm glad that I live in a world where, if I had thought of this and wondered "is this a good idea, or am I just being dumb for thinking something so simple could work?", I am able to go online and find information and guides on this and other diy filters
"Corsi-Rosenthal Box" sounds like it's some theoretical physics thought experiment, but no it's some filters and a box fan.
Be tempted to build one of those for my shop.
I thought it was for filtering weed smoke, designed by the famous grower and strain creator Ed Rosenthal.
Think it was a covid thing.
No word on ed being the rosenthal in question.
These have been around for a long time as DIY filters for folks, I remember seeing one of these on Reddit before comments were a thing.
Once upon a time Reddit drove you to interact with other websites instead of shitposting your best hot take about the title of the post someone else didn’t even visit.
Comments truly ruined Reddit
Someone posted a link to Wikipedia in the comments, came across their names:
Richard Corsi, an environmental engineer and the incoming Dean of Engineering at the University of California, Davis
Jim Rosenthal, the CEO of filter manufacturer Tex-Air Filters
I'm going to start talking in vague terms about my own designs for a "Corsi-Rosenthal Box" when I want to sound smart.
It'll be great if anyone bothers to look it up.
I mean, it sounds like an Einstein-Rosen bridge.
TIL about the Corsi-Rosenthal Box
Been aware of the general idea for a long time, but had no idea that strapping HEPA filters to a fan has a fancy name.
You have to cut some cardboard and use tape too. After when your solution beat every commercial solution you are allowed to name it, just to be able to shame corpo easily.
Now imagine that, but in your lungs. Yikes.
lungs are self cleaning, dirt just dosent stay in there it gets pushed out again by tiny moving hairs
I've put an air filter in the bedroom next to the bed. Makes nice white noise too. I also have one next to the cat's litter box. I'm thinking of putting one in the bathroom because the toilet paper makes an insane amount of lint that builds up everywhere.
make sure you get merv 13 or higher for smoke. the filters get gross fast even with 8 but you can tell the difference when you breathe.
I have 2 to 4 of these going at all times and the 8s are full time and 13+ are periodic unless fire season.
I built one back when I lived in California during fire season, and then again during the pandemic. They do such a nice job making the air less gross.
I think that's about what mine looked like after 3 or 4 weeks too...
Can you talk about how you made this
It’s literally what you see in the picture. Just household furnace filters taped into a box with a fan. You can pick your level of filtration with the type of filters you buy.
Does the fan suck or blow, and why? I seem to recall that the motor will burn out if you face it the wrong way.
Looks like it's sucking air through the filters.
I would imagine it blows upwards, so it sucks in air through the filters and blows clean air up.
In that pic it's blowing up, sucking intake through the filters and blowing filtered air into the room.
It is setup to pull in air through the filters into the box and push it up through the top.
This is a great reminder to clean my computer fans.