TL;DR: what are your tricks to keep the interior air of a house pleasant when living in a stinky locale?
For the next couple years, I am stuck on land* in a house that is occasionally downwind from a paper mill. Holy hell, the smell can be eye-wateringly bad when the winds blow just the wrong way. The house is ~1700 square feet with HVAC.
*I normally live on my sailboat and move around at will.
I have an ozone generator for serious de-stinking, but wow ozone is nasty even in small quantities. I have a Corsi-Rosenthal box, but that does nothing for smells. I was thinking maybe a big tray of activated charcoal in the HVAC intake and another in the CR box. In my experience, the tiny charcoal filters in most air cleaners get saturated in about 48 hours. What works for y’all? Super extra bonus points for ongoing maintenance and cost-reduction tips and tricks.
Thank you fellow Lemmings for anything ya got.
It does something by reducing the amount of stuff in the air before it settles, so I would keep using it regularly anytime there are poor air conditions. It certainly won’t solve the problem on its own. The molecules do get trapped in the filters though, so it might need to have those changed if the box itself starts to get an odor when not running.
The smells from stuff that has settled on surfaces or embedded itself in furniture or other porous surfaces will need to be removed and approaches that work well for pet smells should work for industrial smells. Wiping down surfaces, vacuuming and mopping, steam cleaning furniture and carpets, and other things will help improve things. Odor neutralizes like febreeze can help a lot too.