I was reading some things about CO2 (not Carbon Monoxide but Dioxide) levels in household air especially while you sleep (“Doing my own research” as it were) and was considering getting a CO2 meter. I was wondering if anyone uses one and if so did you find any benefits to lowering the CO2 levels in your home?
I have seen some things about high CO2 impacting sleep quality etc. I am not sure there is anything to any of this so that is another reason I am asking if anyone else has tried one of these monitors and if it made some sort of difference. Thanks.
I’ve used one when i hosted a party to see how bad the ventilation was. Well, a friend brought it, but shared the results. It showed that before all those people crammed into my basement, CO2 levels were fine. My guess is that yours are, too. Sadly, it’s kinda expensive to check. Good CO2 meters are pricey.
Unless your home is a hermetically sealed chamber or you are crammed in asshole to elbow in a two bedroom house with your outrageously prolific ‘Seventies sitcom family, your home is unlikely to build up dangerous levels of carbon dioxide. If you already have a carbon monoxide detector (and have any natural gas or propane-powered appliances) it will likely alert long before CO2 reaches problematic levels, and the health hazards of volatile organic compounds (VOC) outgassing from vinyl polymers and cleaning products, airborne mycotoxins, and allergens such as pet dander are much more common atmospheric contaminants in the home. The answer to this concern is to ensure that your home is getting adequate ventilation, which will exchange gases, keeping carbon dioxide levels in close equilibrium with the outside air.
As @puzzlegal notes, reliable CO2 monitors are expensive, and the ones you can buy off of Amazon.com for <$200 are not accurate at typical atmospheric concentrations; if they detect elevated carbon dioxide levels then the odds are that you will, too, with symptoms of headache, confusion, dizziness, nausea, elevated resting heart rate, et cetera. In general, unless you are a submariner, astronaut, or use a scuba rebreather in your hot tub this just isn’t something you need to worry about at home. The main exposure risks to CO2 are occupational (bulk food and grain processing, chemical industry, commercial transport, submariners), geophysical emissions from volcanoes and fumaroles, and the rare limnic eruption from highly carbonated bodies of water.
I knew a kid in middle school who tried to get his buzz on by huffing the gas emitted from a soft drink. He said that it got him high (briefly), but then he also claimed to have a turbocharged go cart that would go ninety miles an hour, so…
I don’t have a meter, but I do have a carbon monoxide alarm that will warn me if the CO level is hazardously high. Any level lower than that, I don’t need to know.
Calling bullshit on that kid. Inhaling the CO2-rich air from a nearly empty 2-liter bottle is unpleasant, as it immediately makes you desperate for fresh air. It’s the same sensation you get when you’ve been holding your breath for a minute, and for exactly the same reason. If he got high from that, then he could have gotten high simply by holding his breath - in which case he was a medical curiosity.
Going further, inhaling highly concentrated CO2 from a bag of dry ice is extremely painful. I speak from experience, and I don’t recommend the experience for anyone (except maybe Russian autocrats).