Is covering the windows with plastic sheeting of any value?
Are there any circumstances where it would help buy some time for the air to clear?? [color:"purple"] [/color] nancygerardo@merestone.com

Yes, if you were on the very fringe of the chemical/biological cloud... but its real value seems to have more to do with making people feel good about doing something proactive in an uncertain time.

There are lots of previous threads about positive-pressure safe rooms and air filters. Do a search if you'd like to know more. If you can't find anything, let me know and I'll post some links here.

You could search the forum for that topic. There was an extensive discussion of this issue recently. The folks at that US Army Research Institute for Chemical Defense at Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD actually did studies on the topic and claim it works.

I read every posted msg re: plastic & dt, but didn't come across the one you are citing from Maryland. Also, if you create a safe room the rest of your house will need to be aired out, and at that point you will be stepping into bad air.
Comment???
What about cooking with a portable backpacking stove?

Also, would oil lamp (not odorless) be safe to use when sealed in a room?? How about in a larger area--apartment??
I so appreciate getting feedback from those who did. [color:"blue"] [/color]

I'm far from an expert on the subject, but using any open flame inside your sealed room seems like a bad idea to me. Assuming you're not building a complex over pressurized room, and assuming that you actually can completely seal a room with plastic sheeting (which seems doubtful), you've just sealed yourself in a plastic bag with a limited oxygen supply. Probably not a great idea to begin with, but if you burn anything (candles, lanterns, stoves, etc.) you'll burn off the limited oxygen you started with.

Also, check out this
thread, I think it is the one Dr. Anderson recomended, but i'm not sure.

Hope this helps,
Chris.

Really liked this info on the subject so will pass it along: Link I printed it out and keep a copy handy. Kind of gives the impression that besides for a real nuke blast, most WMDs are terrorizing weapons with low probabilities for casualties. I've got 10 mil plastic sheeting and duct tape stashed in a safe room for the just in caseness of it, but it's mostly there to make my wife and kids feel better. Probably have a better chance of being abducted by aliens than being gassed. Would however take precautions for the possibilty of civil disorder following a dirty bomb or such. After hurricane Andrew the looters came out, and law enforcement couldn't get in due to blocked roads. A lot of folks had to guard what was left of their property with whatever weapons they had. Would expect similar difficulties due to gridlock on the roads in a WMD situation. Unfortunately, emergencies bring out the best and the worst of human nature. Regards, Keys

To be effective a sealed room will have no un-filtered air exchange with the outside - contaminated air. Thus if you successfully seal your safe room with duct tape and plastic and you don't provide a positive pressure filtered air flow into your safe room you will surely suffocate. This has happened in Isreal where they preached and practiced this procedure during the first gulf war. Properly constructed this approach will provide some reasonable protection from many bio-chem attacks but if you don't have electricity to run the ventilation system or your filters are faulty or clogged you will be just as dead from suffocation. Dead is dead. If you don't have the room that well sealed then the bio-chem agents will infiltrate just as readily as the Oxygen will.

Let's see...you've got a gas, dirty bomb, whatever incident in the business district of Anytown, USA and you're either in the plume or at least generally downwind. Rather than maniacally trying to seal yourself in & hoping that you don't run out of air before the all clear is given, doesn't it make more sense to grab your loved ones & a BOB and get out of the danger area? Sheltering in place is a good option in some circumstances but when there's literally danger in the air it's time to leave.

Prior to 9/11 most people would never have even considered plastic sheeting and duct taping their homes against gas yet the threat has always been present. Not neccesarily from terrorists but train derailments, truck accidents, etc. In fact, an all too common train derailment is a much more likely threat than any terrorist.

Duct tape and plastic sheeting are feel good suggestions to give the public the impression that the government is really earning the 35% of your pay they collect in taxes.

That's my two cents

Ed

My $0.02 worth:

Dean Ing wrote an "entertainment" novel about a post-nuke america, can't remember the title right now. In it he describes sealing off the basement of an old house, and providing positve pressure FILTERED air through a carboard/plastic sheet/duct tape bellows--the filter element being a separate box connected via a plastic sheet tube. Filter element was toilet paper rolls, air drawn sideways thru the rolls (center tube being plugged up).

Simple, dirt cheap, and infallible as long as you have enough folks to pull shifts pumping air <img src="images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Oh...! Just rememberd name of book: Pulling Through.

Negatives aside, I would still have the plastic sheeting and duct tape handy. This forum is largely about being prepared for dangerous situations of low probablity of occurance. There have been numerous terrorist related inquiries and arrests here in S. Florida. If I were to look up and see a small drone airplane spraying something over my area I would dang sure seal up my safe room and wait it out for a few hours. I think four people would have no trouble breathing in a large sealed bedroom for that long. Regards, Keys