How Long Do Gas Mask Filters Last

In terms of prepping, a gas mask is often considered essential gear for survival.

But, while well-nigh people know that your typical gas mask requires a filter, almost people don't know how long they concluding, and the elements that break down a gas mask filter more quickly than other agents.

This article is to assist in explaining the typical lifespan of a gas mask filter, and what that means in terms of survival.

There are many factors to take into account when discussing the lifespan of a gas mask filter.

For the purpose of this article, NBC (nuclear, biological, and chemic) rated filters volition be discussed unless otherwise specified.

If you are actively prepping, you may want to bank check the manufacturers' shelf life literature on whatever gas mask filters you take currently stocked.

In A Storeroom Or On A Shelf

Typically, we've found that well-nigh gas mask filters state on the packaging that they have a shelf life span of 5 years.

This, of grade, meaning they have been sealed in the original packaging and non exposed to any moisture, which will showtime to pause downward the charcoal inside the filter, rendering the gas mask filter essentially useless.

While in that location are longer shelf lives on some gas mask filters, in the normal gas mask filter, such every bit the 40mm filter, you ordinarily won't find one that claims to have a shelf life lasting longer than a 5-twelvemonth bridge inside of its original packaging and stored in a absurd, dry area.

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How Speedily Exercise They Break Downwardly In Use?

Again, the breakdown of the gas mask filter is going to vary greatly with the type of filter, and what sort of pollutants it is being saturated with.

Most combined filters last around 8 hours in a nuclear, biological, or chemical exposure situation.

Chemical specific filters tin last up to twenty hours when exposed to the same NBC state of affairs.

When dealing with filters such as those used by the US military on the standard MOP4 gear, the mask itself will begin to pause downward before the filter begins breaking downwards upon exposure to nerve gas. In scenarios similar this, however, weapons such as C12CO will actually burn down through the filter itself.

It is imperative to use a filter specific to the agent at hand if it is known. However, when prepping for your survival an NBC rated filter may exist the all-time yous can practice without knowing and preparing for a specific imminent threat.

Interestingly, cyanogen chloride volition deteriorate your filter in every bit little as thirty minutes of exposure.

Also, dusty atmospheric condition, such as breathing in a desert, are going to drastically decrease the lifespan of your gas mask filter.

The reason is that the activated charcoal in the filter absorbs the particles that you're animate in.

As you breathe and pull more than particles through the filter, it'south going to become packed full of particles, similar sand, making it incommunicable to exhale inside your mask earlier as well long.

What About "Clean" Air Situations?

Even while breathing air without known NBC threats, you really just have nearly a 24-60 minutes life span on your gas mask filter.

The important affair to call up is that y'all need to be fully prepared to curlicue your gas mask directly prior to an agent being released.

If the particles are already in the air and getting into your oxygen supply when you strap your mask on, information technology'southward too belatedly. Your gas mask needs to be filtered and securely strapped onto your face prior to your oxygen supply reaching contaminated levels.

The use of a gas mask is for getting yourself and your loved ones out of the "light-green cloud", or area of known contamination.

Gas mask filters, therefore, are not meant to last for extended periods of time. They are for high-stress situations where a threat has been confirmed, and it is a known agent that will enter your body through your oxygen supply.

When you are dealing with a threat like mustard gas, you would need to also encompass any exposed pare because it is a blistering agent. That means that any exposed flesh is going to burn and cicatrice immediately upon exposure.

In some scenarios, such every bit chlorine gas, your exposure to the gas isn't what is going to impale you.

It is the fact that within of the cloud, you will not be able to filter out enough oxygen to sufficiently breathe.

If you don't immediately remove yourself from the cloud, y'all volition suffocate long before the gas mask filter is full and breaking downwardly.

What Should My Gas Mask And Filter Supply Goal Entail?

When you are thinking in terms of prepping and survival, you lot want to try to get at the very minimum an Israeli, NATO surplus type of gas mask.

Don't waste your time or coin on Russian gas masks, they're just good for Halloween decorations.

Israeli NATO surplus masks with a standard 40mm filter will provide decent visibility and affordable NBC protection.

They will use the standard filters with NBC rating so yous don't need to effort to stock the last 100 specialty filters for that mask type in existence in your already packed prepping storeroom.

The Mestel SGE ISO Gas Mask takes regular 40mm filters, offers a big field of view, and provides a comfortable, fog-resistant full mask.

Mestel 40mm NBC rated, NATO canonical filters with a 5-twelvemonth shelf life can be stored and ready to lock on and help in an emergency evacuation situation without the demand to worry almost specialty filters, or different sized filters for different masks on all of your family members.

What Is The Safest Choice?

As always, your best option is to avert the affected areas to begin with.

You have a much greater threat of chemical threats while in DC than you do in North Dakota.

If you are in a large urban center or political hub, you lot plainly would want to stock more filters, because you are in a threat zone. If you tin remove yourself from the imminent threat, information technology'south always the safest route to accept.