@rustingbridges replied: “how expired are expired filters anyway. what causes them to go bad”
I’m not sure.
[…]
Some googling *suggests* that shelf lives for particulate filters are mostly a legal fiction, with a side of “the longer it sits around, the more opportunities for it to get physically damaged without you noticing”. Gas filters have a finite capacity to absorb gas which is eventually used up even just with normal traces of stuff in the air (I’ve noticed that the added nuisance-vapour filtration in my P100s stops working after 3 – 4 months of use), which vastly broadens the scope of possible “physical damage you didn’t notice” (a pinhole in the formerly-airtight packaging might do it). (Also gas filters fail open, so using a gas filter you falsely believed to have capacity left in it could severely fuck you over depending on how toxic the gas is.)
I wouldn’t want to bet my health on it, especially since 20 USD for [a primary set + a spare set] every few years is pretty cheap. But I think I’d take a ten-year-old P100 over a cloth mask, if those were my options.
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For disposables, the main problem seems to be the nosepiece and edging, which break down and deform over time and make it harder to seal the respirator properly.
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(For the record, I’ve been replacing my filters every four months or so when I can smell the ethylene or whatever the fuck it is stinking up the walk-in refrigerator at work (I assume nobody else has noticed it because for them it’s being drowned out by the particulate scents), but keeping all of the old filters in their original boxes (which have opening dates Sharpied on them) on a shelf in my bedroom. *Germs* don’t clog filters, but *smoke* does: if–and I would not be remotely surprised if this happens, with the way the world’s been going [link]–I find myself dealing with smoky air on a scale of months with a rickety-at-best supply chain, I may be glad to have those filters on hand.))
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#replies #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers #illness tw? #poison cw? #apocalypse cw?
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