Convection observing for nerds

Normally I just stick pieces of toilet paper in my door ways to watch my hot air in action, but over the weekend I had more fun than I should readily admit walking through the house with incense. My wife loves the stuff, and after lighting one up for her I noticed that the smoke trail wasn't going in a logical direction. I then proceeded to walk around the house with the lit stick, and was able to see some amazing air currents ripping around. The response was far more sensitive than hanging something in the door, and I could see the impact of obtacles like chairs, tables, counters, etc.

Fortunately she has some manly sents in her collection, so after a few sticks of fun I didn't smell like a bag of potpourri.

Beau said:

By walking around I'm assuming that you're moving from place to place and sitting there for several minutes before your testing, right?
Otherwise your body is the cause of the currents as you move from room to room.
Some times it can take several minutes for air to settle after moving around.

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You can definitely see the disturbance you make walking around, but after a short period of time in one spot things stop being random, and a well established pattern emerges. I think my personal favorite location so far is holding the stick close to the ceiling near places where I have a passthrough between rooms. Smoke starts to accumulate at the ceiling, then after a few seconds things settle down and all the smoke would get sucked downward and rip through the door opening to my second floor. Another good one was putting it close to the floor in the dooway that goes to the room my stove is in. Readily explained why the room can be 80+ degrees on the wall mounted thermometer, but you freeze if you sit on the floor.

My wifes collections of scents is fairly girly, but I'm finding sandlewood to be acceptable for extended experimentation