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My neighbor has an old wood-burning stove, which he recently started burning a couple of weeks ago. With the way our houses are positioned, the smoke is blowing towards my house and seeping in. It's causing everyone to cough, including my infant.

I've tried talking to him, but he isn't interested in switching to a cleaner fuel source. (My area offers highly-credited/free replacements, but he "likes the fire.")

I'm now working to mitigate the problem. I already replaced the windows last summer, and I'm working on the doors, insulating and sealing any remaining gaps.

I also made a Corsi-Rosenthal box as an experiment to see how effective it would be. While it works well, the volume of air creates a breeze inside the house which is chilly.

So I'm not looking at adding HEPA air purifiers in all of the rooms, and I'm trying to calculate the number I need. I've worked out the volume of air in my house and know the CFM of the purifiers I'm looking at.

So here's my question: How many air changes per hour do I need to filter out my neighbor's wood stove smoke? I've seen varied numbers from different sources, but I'm looking for something specific to my issue.

LandonSchropp
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    how old is your house? have you had it air sealed? what is your ach50 rating? how far apart are your houses? – Fresh Codemonger Dec 02 '23 at 21:24
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    there are active carbon filters that you can buy that can be put on incoming air to filter smoke. how large is your lot? Could you create a 8" 100' air intake and trench it to an area that is not getting as much smoke? – Fresh Codemonger Dec 02 '23 at 21:27
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    what is your heat source, are you using combustion, which then requires make up air? – Fresh Codemonger Dec 02 '23 at 21:28
  • Wow! Awesome questions. There's a lot more here than I realized. Let me try to answer them. – LandonSchropp Dec 02 '23 at 21:44
  • The house was built in the 1920s and hasn't been air-sealed. Is that something that I would have done professionally? How would I measure ach50? – LandonSchropp Dec 02 '23 at 21:46
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    plant tall bushes between the houses to create a windblock. This should force the wind up and over the bush and house, preventing smoke intake. Also, getting him to raise his chimney a yard or so should allow more smoke to pass over your house. You should also run ionizers in your house to sink particulates to the floor, reducing filtering demands. – dandavis Dec 02 '23 at 21:48
  • The neighbor's house is about 15 feet away and the lot is about ~7000 sq ft. – LandonSchropp Dec 02 '23 at 21:50
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    aerobarrier is the most cost effective option to get your involuntary air changes down after you've done the easy air sealing ( weather stripping, dampers, caulking ). ach50 is measured using a blower door. – Fresh Codemonger Dec 02 '23 at 21:51
  • The house uses a gas furnace. I'm not sure about intake requirements—where would I find that? There is an area on the other side of the house that has steps and a basement entrance. The foundation runs down about 6 feet, and then there's a another foot or so in the basemenet. Could that work for air intake and trenching? – LandonSchropp Dec 02 '23 at 21:52
  • Would it make sense to hire someone to perform the ACH50 test after the easy stuff to see how many involuntary air changes I'm getting? And then from there potentially mitigate with something like aerobarrier? – LandonSchropp Dec 02 '23 at 21:55
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    you could though aerobarrier will do a before and an after test. 1920s house you are probably at something high like 20 ACH50. My house is a 1 ACH50. Does your furnace room have dedicated air intake vents or just rely on your house being leaky? I'd start in the furnace room with an HVAC tech and make sure you have dedicated air intake for that room. If the air intake only comes in for the furnace and only into the furnace room then it doesn't matter if that air is smokey. If you don't have dedicated make up air then your furnace is pulling outside air in through all the little holes. – Fresh Codemonger Dec 02 '23 at 22:34
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    I'll check on that, and see if I can add a dedicated air intake. Thank you for all the help! – LandonSchropp Dec 02 '23 at 22:36

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