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The bottleneck might be the air in the room
(blog.mikebowler.ca)
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this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2026
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Yeah, this really shocked me too.
Basically, we knew that high carbon dioxide levels would have negative effects, but we used to think that much higher levels were required to have an impact, like 5,000 ppm or higher.
Then in recent years, some people started doing experimentation and found that mental capabilities were significantly worse at 1000 ppm.
Just sleeping with my bedroom door closed
in a not especially airtight house
I get well over that.
Also worth pointing out that pre-industrial outdoor carbon dioxide concentrations were about 280 ppm. We've brought it up to about 420 ppm now. Makes it harder to ventilate to get rid of the carbon dioxide indoors than was once the case, because there's also more of it outdoors now.
Worse yet in residential hvac systems, you have a closed system. When the furnace kicks on, it pulls inside air to heat it up. That air displacement creates a a negative air pressure inside the home. The exaust plumbing is typically nothing more than pvc pipes that are placed right at the exterior wall of the house. This just causes all that exhaust from the furnace to just get sucked back into the home. Diluted with outside air, yes, but a significant amount of it is getting sucked back in. Now it's winter, you are running your dryer, and frying some bacon on the stove with the exaust. Some one is in the bathroom with the exaust fan on too. All that co2 is getting pumped right back into your home and then some.
I wonder if with the research on CO2 effects, if we will start to get CO2 filters in common appliances such as indoor heating and cooling equipment.
Places like the International Space Station already have to deal with this because they can't just open a window.
IIRC, lime or something like that can be used as a carbon scrubber, but it's not something that you'd want to do constantly and everywhere. Looked this up some time back.
searches
Soda lime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soda_lime
Probably, if you want to regulate CO₂ levels in HVAC systems, best to ventilate to the outside and then run the exchanged air through a counterflow heat exchanger to preserve indoor temperature as much as possible.
Oh I’ve got some limes.
Oh, well I can go get some of that.
Oh, so it’s not lime soda. It’s soda lime. Alright then… I’ve got some salt and milk.
Wait, I’m not supposed to drink it?
Actually, ppm in 1000 - 2000 makes for better sleep. But for worse thinking of course.
People who sleep in their cars, engine running and parked in a garage, sleep like babies!
It's carbon monoxide that's getting produced by combustion in an anoxic environment.