D.I.Y. Smoke Eater

The smoke is bad. Duh? But for many people, we can escape to the safety and breath easy inside our homes. This isn't the case for everyone. Maybe your house isn't up to snuff with the doors and windows. Heck maybe your air conditioner and heater can only suck from the outside. Geesh, maybe your AC is the window being open. If that's the case, I feel for you. It makes me ask the question... "Where the heck is Ron Popeil & RONCO when you need him!?!" We could sure use an industrial size Smokeless Ashtray right about now!

Well, if you do have the problem of smoke inside your home, due to the poor air quality, here's a fun little D.I.Y. (Do It Yourself) project to help. A big thanks to my family members who live down in Bend, Oregon for showing me this awesome device. Troy Shelley & Corie Mallen are like all of us, and are sick of the smoke. So Troy decided to build this and ended up sharing it, so others might be able to breath easier. All you need is: a box fan, cardboard, an air conditioner filter and DUCT TAPE! In fact, depending on the size of fan & filters, you can get everything you need for under $30!

As you can see from the pictures above, you set the fan up to blow out, sucking air from the inside area of the cardboard chamber. Smokey air is sucked into the filters (make sure you have your arrows aligned right with the airflow). Cut the cardboard to fit (or just bend it when needed) and make like The Red Green Show and duct tape the heck out of that sucker. Make sure you leave the cord for the fan un-taped and accessible. Put the box on a table and turn it on. Within an hour of it being on, my cousin commented how "It's helping a lot!" Now with all D.I.Y. projects that deal with electricity, DO IT AT YOUR OWN RISK! Be careful, breathe easy & good luck!