I never would have thought about this. I just looked at my Ecowitt dashboard and our Indoor AQI is the highest I've ever seen it. I asked my wife if she had windows open or did something burn in the kitchen. Nope, Just a couple candles burning.
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This is why we don't use the AQI in my multi-sensor. All we have to do is light the stove and fry an egg and it goes from green to "get out of the house now" levels. I don't know what it keys on, but I do know the wife doesn't burn eggs.
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This one is on top of our entertainment center in the family room. She does burn candles quite a bit, but I've never seen it spike like that before.. Usually it's around 6-8.
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As a firefighter, I have to go through an annual fit-test for my SCBA (self-contained breathing apparatus) mask. We need to light a candle when testing in order to generate a large number of background particulates to ensure the fit is proper. It is amazing how much a little candle can put out...
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I put our new VINDSTRYKA AQM on the faux fireplace and graphed the pm2.5.
Every 15 minutes it would shoot up, then gradually come down only to shoot up again.
I put it right next to a Glade automatic air freshener.
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Goes to show you that those automatic air fresheners are not the best with regard to indoor air quality. Go ahead and google "air fresheners and indoor air quality" and you will see a number of articles to that effect.
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How AQI is calculatedb isn't very consistent between countries. The US has a variety of things that can inpact AQI values. And i believe the worst calculated value based on the source determines what the actual AQI value is. PM or particulate matter measurements are big, but so are certain TVOC's. Burning a gas stove/fireplace will cause certain TVOC's to jump up. It is why we were told to always run the exhast fan when cooking.
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Fellow firefighter here (just an old man exterior only volunteer). There's almost nothing in our household that isn't done by mutual agreement, but I put my foot down and banned candles in our house years ago, despite my wife thinking they're wonderful. The darn things spew out all manner of noxious substances into the air (as the OP's monitor shows), and have forced me out of a nice warm bed too often, because somebody thought they smelled nice and looked pretty but forgot about them. My wife stopped complaining about the household ban when a lady she knew on the other side of town almost burned her house down with one (we got there in time to save it, thankfully, but another minute or two and...). Anyway, ban those horrible things from your homes, folks. It's not the 1700s anymore and those little battery operated fake candles look just as pretty.
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We have not had a lit candle in the house for years. Wife likes the fragrance so we use candle warmers that are like mini hot plates or a bulb hanging over the candle.
I have heard the plug in air fresheners are also unsafe so we don’t use those.
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If using a gas stove you should have an overhead vent that vents to the outside and you should turn that on each time you light the gas.
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