Comment by Dylan16807
3 years ago
Are you talking about emergencies, or are you talking about "the low-income perspective"?
Because you said you were doing the latter, and I was criticizing your words using that context. In that context, your words come across as judgemental.
If you're actually talking about the former, then you chose your words pretty poorly.
The low-income people are often the most impacted when an emergency hits. I'm sure if someone had $1000 for an air purifier, they could get one the next day, in most circumstances. Though I'm not low income (now), I got a reminder of it when local materials were totally gone and I would have had to pay through the nose to keep my place breathable. It was bad. The hallways in our apartment building had a haze of smoke 24/7. Fortunately the city let everyone know about the box fan solution, so that's what we did.
For me, being unprepared in a new city, and for low income people who aren't prepared, choosing form over function was a luxury.
> The low-income people are often the most impacted when an emergency hits.
Yes, but it's not relevant to low-income people in general. For someone getting an air purifier in a normal situation, they can go for an ikea model about as well as any other solution. Especially considering the box fan uses a ton of power, costing money.
>Especially considering the box fan uses a ton of power, costing money.
Assuming 24/7 usage, in the first year you'd save $27, and in subsequent years, $57.
But this isn't counting filters. You can get a much higher range of standard filters for a box fan, meaning you can run it much less and filter more. And when IKEA discontinues the product, you're SOL finding filters, so you have to buy something new, whereas you'll never have that problem with a box fan. All things considered, I think box fan would win on cost.