Air Purifiers

[tecophile]

After a long break and 2 kids later I have joined grad school . I'm having jitters thinking about a seminar next month where my presentation topic would be Indoor air quality and use of air purifiers .Since this forum has technical oriented users I felt it would be a good platform to put forth few of the questions I have in mind .

Your inputs and experiences will be appreciated .

1) What methods do you adopt for improving indoor air quality inside your home ?
2 )Would you buy an Air Purifier to improve indoor air quality in your home?
3) If you use an air purifier at the moment what are the most important aspects for choosing a particular model/brand?
4) For existing users - Which purifier type do you use ? ionizer or HEPA type air purifier ?
5) In my case study I'm comparing 4 purifiers . Kindly vote and you can comment on this thread telling me why you voted for that particular model.

1. Whirlpool (http://www.whirlpoolairpurifiers.com) 2. Clair (http://go-clair.com/)
3. Winix (https://www.winixamerica.com) 4. 3M (http://www.filtrete.com/)


Any comment or opinion is welcome .Thanks in advance.

 

[SK-1]

Ive used these for about 10 years. Excellent air cleaners.
http://austinair.com/products/ Lots of activated carbon.
http://www.alpineairproducts.com/ Lots of Ozone and negative or positive ions.

 

[stinger608]

I just live in Cheyenne Wyoming.........One of the cleanest air areas in the country.

http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2012/04/28/news/19local_04-28-12.txt#.VHEqrYvF-Ck

 

[jsalpha2]

I use an older model of this
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Rainbow...05&prg=11353&rk=2&rkt=6&sd=160587821759&rt=nc

It filters, humidifies and scents the air.

 

[Liquid Cool]

As SK-1 mentioned...the AustinAir is a good unit, real basic with a strong motor. I've used one in my bedroom for over a decade. At night, I can turn it down to low(1) and you can't really hear the motor. It's rather silent.

Although, when I go to purchase a new unit...the only unit I'd consider is an IQ Air HealthPro Plus.

I think you should have put at least one Honeywell unit in your poll...they make the standard go-to air purifiers that most people purchase. Perhaps the 50250 would be a good place to start. I've been researching/purchasing air purifiers for 20 years and I'm not familiar with, nor have I ever heard of any of these units you've listed.

Best,

LC

 

[hat]

1. None at the moment
2. Yes
3. Presence of an Ionizer. These can produce Ozone gas, which for me is not a good thing. Ionizers can also "leak" harmful particles that they mostly remove from the air, once they are already charged. This means they can attach to the floor, walls, furniture, even your lungs.
4. n/a
5. I see links to only brands, not particular models. I see True HEPA Filtration, and Ozone/Ionizer free right on the front page for the Whirlpool ones, so I'll go with that.

 

[rtwjunkie]

I use the highest filtering level of the Filtrete air filters because of bad allerges, and they do a marvelous job of catching nearly everything in my air. It's the best way for me, since I run central air nearly year-round.

 

[TheMailMan78]

Living near the ocean my whole life I never gave this much thought. I guess is cities and valley regions this could be an issue. I know in downtown Miami I would have trouble breathing.......but that might have been the crack.

 

[fullinfusion]

Anything with an adjustable ionizer and I'm game. Females are more prone to higher levels of ozone and get headaches easier then the men do from having one and seeing how they work. A true HEPA and ionizer is a win win but like I said if I want to smell the ozone I want the adjustment and not a switch that says ionizer on/off .. Low/med/high.. Gime a dial and I'll dial it in myself thank you

 

[Raw]

I vote for my Activated Carbon machine.

I have to tell you... It's a funny thing. I have been on TPU for quite awhile now and have never seen anything related to air purifiers. But why it's funny to me is because I am in the process of working on my own air purifier system right now.
What I am working with here is a commercial, heavy duty cigarette smoke HEPA machine. Although we don't smoke in our house it is nice to have for other things, like my dogs, cooking, dust... what dust? We are clean freaks here, we have no dust (unless I am remodeling, etc.).

This unit also works for hydrocarbons, paint and organic vapors, certain acids, esters, sulphur compounds, hydrogen compounds, solvents and most other odor, even bacteria and virus'. Cooking odors don't stand a chance, neither do smoke odors.

It is approximately 30" x 48" x 18" in size. It has a furnace type squirrel cage blower inside. It used to hang in the ceiling of a local pub that my nephew's own. As the laws here in N.Y. have changed and there is no smoking allowed anywhere in any bar or restaurant, even with this type of machine, they asked me if I wanted it. Hell yes I want it.
I hung it in my basement and this baby works. I mean it really works.

I intend to plumb it permanently into my furnace duct work so it will clean the entire house, not just the basement. It will effortlessly do the first and second floor and the basement.
This unit is capable of cleaning 3000 sq. ft. by itself. My house is 1900 sq. ft.

It has a bunch of filters inside, the most serious is a HEPA filter that measures 15" x 15" x 12" ( replacement cost = $150.00 US), and (2) activated carbon Pre-filters plus (2) activated carbon Post-filters.

The unit draws 4.2 amps @120v So I only run it when I need it. It has a 2 speed blower, hi and low with center off switch.

I also use a Nordic Pure 16"x25"x4" MERV 7 Plus Activated Carbon AC Furnace Air Filter in my gas furnace's cold air return duct..

 

[Arjai]

.......but that might have been the crack.

LOL!!

 

[tecophile]

Thank you so much for all the insights .. expecting inputs from few more users . I never knew tech forums were so active . I tried posting on FB as well but it wasn't this responsive and nobody bothered to elaborate on air purifiers at length .

 

[AphexDreamer]

I've always wanted to get an air purifier but I want to avoid filters.
So I've been looking into the Onix
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0013HT14U/?tag=tec06d-20

 

[RejZoR]

Take the one which has option to disable ionisation. And also chec the filters availability. I know quite few units that had no filters available after 1 or 2 years.

Oh and stay away from those tiny farting units. For air filtration to work you need large airflow and good throughput. Otherwise it'll just filter a bit air around itself and the rest will not even be affected. Which is a problem even for larger more powerful units.

 

[tecophile]

Take the one which has option to disable ionisation. And also chec the filters availability. I know quite few units that had no filters available after 1 or 2 years.

Oh and stay away from those tiny farting units. For air filtration to work you need large airflow and good throughput. Otherwise it'll just filter a bit air around itself and the rest will not even be affected. Which is a problem even for larger more powerful units.

While preparing for my seminar I have been reading a lot of information regarding indoor air quality and air purifiers and have realized that the big air purifiers with large fans are no better than the small room air purifiers . The CFM rating of an air purifier with a bigger fan might be high but in most cases these large air purifiers with big fan cannot be operated in the high setting mode because they tend to become extremely noisy and in such cases people keep it switched off or keep it operating in low mode and the entire purpose of using an air purifier is lost because air purifiers work only as long as they are switched on and the minute they are turned off the airborne allergens,mold spores ,virus etc continue circulating in the air without being captured by the air purifier . In addition to this large air purifier filters have to be washed regularly and all the pre filters and main filter will have to be replaced every 4 months and the so called powerful fan will act like an electricity sucker, consume lot of power and increase your electric bill .

Keeping in mind all the above the best choice for a consumer would definitely be a small mid sized room air purifier . That's the reason I specifically used small room air purifiers for my comparative study in which I see the Clair BF2025 (http://go-clair.com/) outperforming the other air purifiers wrt technology and filter life which is relatively better than the others . Winix comes a close second .

 

[itwasmay]

If it's a small mid-sized room, noise level is critical. The Clair you mentioned looks cute, and it consumes low power, but is it noisy?

 

[RejZoR]

While preparing for my seminar I have been reading a lot of information regarding indoor air quality and air purifiers and have realized that the big air purifiers with large fans are no better than the small room air purifiers . The CFM rating of an air purifier with a bigger fan might be high but in most cases these large air purifiers with big fan cannot be operated in the high setting mode because they tend to become extremely noisy and in such cases people keep it switched off or keep it operating in low mode and the entire purpose of using an air purifier is lost because air purifiers work only as long as they are switched on and the minute they are turned off the airborne allergens,mold spores ,virus etc continue circulating in the air without being captured by the air purifier . In addition to this large air purifier filters have to be washed regularly and all the pre filters and main filter will have to be replaced every 4 months and the so called powerful fan will act like an electricity sucker, consume lot of power and increase your electric bill .

Keeping in mind all the above the best choice for a consumer would definitely be a small mid sized room air purifier . That's the reason I specifically used small room air purifiers for my comparative study in which I see the Clair BF2025 (http://go-clair.com/) outperforming the other air purifiers wrt technology and filter life which is relatively better than the others . Winix comes a close second .

Big unit on low setting will have a higher throughput than small one on low or medium...

 

[tecophile]

Big unit on low setting will have a higher throughput than small one on low or medium...

If the efficiency of an air purifier is just based on the CFM rating your logic makes sense but latest air purifier technology doesn't require an air purifier to have a powerful fan and the CFM/CADR rating cannot give the accurate measure of efficiency in such cases .

For instance the Clair air purifier employs a patented e2f filter which doesn't need a powerful fan to draw in air because it uses static electricity in the filter fiber in addition to a motorized fan and since the filter fiber captures airborne particulate matter as small as 0.1 micron which is a notch higher than HEPA (0.3 micron is the present HEPA standard) it increases the particulate capturing efficiency of the air purifier.

Apart from this my focus was on long term operating costs as well . The more replacement filters you need the more expensive an air purifier tends to get in the long run. Since an air purifier is an appliance which is designed for 24/7 usage this is an important factor to take into consideration but its unfortunate that most consumers just tend to get carried away by marketing gimmicks which make them believe that an appliance is much more than what it is meant to be making them forget the reason why they want that particular appliance in the first place . Happens to most of us these days ..

If it's a small mid-sized room, noise level is critical. The Clair you mentioned looks cute, and it consumes low power, but is it noisy?

No air purifier has completely silent operation but yes as compared to the other air purifiers which I used for my comparative study the Clair air purifier and Winix models were relatively silent even when operated on high speed mode.

 

[RejZoR]

If you don't have the air flow, you're just recirculating air you've just exhausted from the unit, which makes filtration of the air rather pointless don't you think? You have to recirculate large amounts of air, which means the entire volume of the air in the room has to go through the filters several times an hour if you want it to be truly effective.

 

[SK-1]

I find the larger fans are inherently more silent. Just like pc case fans. More air movement with less noise. Plus the larger fans tend to produce less of an irritating whine. As far as filter longevity...I get 3 to 4 years (sometimes even more) on an Austin carbon or carbon/zeolite combo. 15lbs of activated charcoal=massive surface area.

 

[tecophile]

If you don't have the air flow, you're just recirculating air you've just exhausted from the unit, which makes filtration of the air rather pointless don't you think? You have to recirculate large amounts of air, which means the entire volume of the air in the room has to go through the filters several times an hour if you want it to be truly effective.

My point was air is never stagnant and if we keep the air purifier in the center of the room or in a place with good air circulation all the air will eventually pass through it . If you take the case of a room with no ventilation and just stagnant air then maybe the performance of a small unit won't be upto par due to lack of air circulation inside the room but most of us live in homes with pretty good ventilation and air circulation and when there is adequate air circulation a small room air purifier with a 4 watt rating can do the job as efficiently as a big air purifier.

 

[Raw]

As the guy in the other thread said...I hate overkill

Here it is in all it's glory. I need to re-paint it, I know.
I'm waiting for spring, I need to spray it out in the garage.

 

[elitan]

Now a day, blueair is the highest rated air purifier you should choose.