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Why would they cut corners? Activated carbon isn’t expensive.

karlgkk 29d ago
But it does cost money and so… corners are cut
Retric 29d ago
Because it’s not obvious to most customers that a corner’s been cut. Same reason most new construction in the US sucks. You can safely put a washer and dryer on the upper floor of a house if you add a proper floor drain, but you’re unlikely to see anyone add a floor drain in new construction because buyers aren’t looking for it. Now multiply that by everything a buyer isn’t looking for and you’re talking real money.
- mschuster91 28d ago
  > You can safely put a washer and dryer on the upper floor of a house if you add a proper floor drain European here, we've always been placing washer/dryer stacks in our bathrooms without needing floor drains. We have machines with a system called Aquastop [1] that stop the water flow if the machine detects a leak inside the system. [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquastop https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquastop
  - Retric 28d ago
    There’s a wide range of such designs due to the various different failure modes from false positives to the kinds of leaks resulting in 10’s of thousands in damages they are supposed to prevent.
  - Symbiote 28d ago
    In Denmark and I think Sweden it's a requirement that a washing machine is in a room with a floor drain. Therefore the washing machine is usually in the bathroom, and the shower drain serves both purposes.
- throwway120385 28d ago
  What brand of washer do you use so I can studiously avoid it?
  - Retric 28d ago
    If the seal between the washing machine and the water supply fails it doesn’t matter which brand you’re using. They have improved over time, but you need to have a drain for the washing machine anyway so the cost is quite low vs the rather extreme damage a leak can cause.
Aurornis 29d ago
You simply cannot put enough activated carbon in a little foam thing that goes in front of a filter to do anything useful. The real activated carbon filters have 10s of pounds of carbon. The little black foam thing that comes with those 2-in-1 carbon filters is useless.
- gambiting 29d ago
  And manufacturers do a sneaky swap too, my Coway 150 which is a great air filter by the way, came with a nice thick grid of hexagonal cells each filled with carbon granules - that insert alone weighs like half a kg. I ordered official filter and carbon filter replacements off their website ....got a thin carbon "foam" that weighs maybe 50g instead.
- ericd 28d ago
  If anyone wants to get serious about VOC filtering, these things have 7 pounds of carbon in them, they’re made for filtering the air of weed grow ops: https://terra-bloom.com/collections/carbon-filters https://terra-bloom.com/collections/carbon-filters
gib444 29d ago
The clue is in your name
victorbjorklund 28d ago
You have companies choosing the component that cost 10 cents instead of 15 cents even if the 10 cents component will break 10 times faster than the more expensive one.

But it does cost money and so… corners are cut

Because it’s not obvious to most customers that a corner’s been cut. Same reason most new construction in the US sucks. You can safely put a washer and dryer on the upper floor of a house if you add a proper floor drain, but you’re unlikely to see anyone add a floor drain in new construction because buyers aren’t looking for it. Now multiply that by everything a buyer isn’t looking for and you’re talking real money.

mschuster91 28d ago
> You can safely put a washer and dryer on the upper floor of a house if you add a proper floor drain European here, we've always been placing washer/dryer stacks in our bathrooms without needing floor drains. We have machines with a system called Aquastop [1] that stop the water flow if the machine detects a leak inside the system. [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquastop https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquastop
- Retric 28d ago
  There’s a wide range of such designs due to the various different failure modes from false positives to the kinds of leaks resulting in 10’s of thousands in damages they are supposed to prevent.
- Symbiote 28d ago
  In Denmark and I think Sweden it's a requirement that a washing machine is in a room with a floor drain. Therefore the washing machine is usually in the bathroom, and the shower drain serves both purposes.
throwway120385 28d ago
What brand of washer do you use so I can studiously avoid it?
- Retric 28d ago
  If the seal between the washing machine and the water supply fails it doesn’t matter which brand you’re using. They have improved over time, but you need to have a drain for the washing machine anyway so the cost is quite low vs the rather extreme damage a leak can cause.

Aurornis 29d ago

You simply cannot put enough activated carbon in a little foam thing that goes in front of a filter to do anything useful. The real activated carbon filters have 10s of pounds of carbon. The little black foam thing that comes with those 2-in-1 carbon filters is useless.

gambiting 29d ago
And manufacturers do a sneaky swap too, my Coway 150 which is a great air filter by the way, came with a nice thick grid of hexagonal cells each filled with carbon granules - that insert alone weighs like half a kg. I ordered official filter and carbon filter replacements off their website ....got a thin carbon "foam" that weighs maybe 50g instead.
ericd 28d ago
If anyone wants to get serious about VOC filtering, these things have 7 pounds of carbon in them, they’re made for filtering the air of weed grow ops: https://terra-bloom.com/collections/carbon-filters https://terra-bloom.com/collections/carbon-filters

gib444 29d ago

The clue is in your name

victorbjorklund 28d ago

You have companies choosing the component that cost 10 cents instead of 15 cents even if the 10 cents component will break 10 times faster than the more expensive one.