|
Let's
take a look at common home air purifier and air cleaner technologies:
HEPA
Filters
–
Stands for High Efficiency Particulate Arrestance. As
indicated by it’s name, it only handles
particulates.
HEPA filters do
nothing
for odors and gases in the air.
HEPA
filters
use a powerful fan to force the air through a very tight membrane
filter to
achieve high efficiency particulate filtration. They
require expensive filters; they do not remove
odors, gases,
pesticides, viruses and many bacteria. Because
the filter fibers are very small and tight, they cannot be used at the
whole
house level otherwise they would limit the airflow through
your
central
heating or
air conditioning and could damage your systems air handler. As
a result, HEPA filters are sold as stand
alone- in room units only.
This also
means that to handle an entire home, you need multiple HEPA machines,
making
this VERY costly and inefficient. One
of the best room HEPA air purifiers for
particulate reduction is the IQ Air HealthPro, but even that only
covers 320
square feet and prices start at $695. Imagine
your cost to handle an entire 3000 square
foot home!
It makes our solution a complete
bargain! Once
again, odors
and gases are
unaffected. At
best, a partial solution.
Ultraviolet Air
Purifiers –
I sell two of the leading UV air purifiers on our website. Biozone Air Purifiers and Air Oasis Air Purifiers both are both very good stand alone air purifiers for handling biological contaminants, odors and gases. However, they do little on dust or airborne particles. Sure, the manufacturers claim that the ionizing
properties will help remove some dust from the air,
however they simply cannot do enough on the dust to make a big difference for you - especially
if dust is your main sources of discomfort. And despite the claims of “covers up to 3000 square feet”, the small fans and resulting airflow are simply not sufficient to handle a large home.
And they certainly won’t work through ceilings and floors.
As a result, multiple units are required to handle an entire home.
Now here's the good news. If dust isn't your main concern and you want to eliminate pet or smoke odor or kill pollen spores, mold spores, bacteria, viruses and germs. This Ultraviolet technology like Biozone and Air Oasis is excellent.
Ionizers –
Using
tons of marketing hype, Sharper Image sells the Ionic Breeze and brags
about it having
no fan.
Simply put, air movement is REQUIRED to clean the air. At $400 each and no fan, you need 4-5 of these things to cover a medium sized home. Plus they are only minimally effective on
removing dust. Once
they get dirty, they lose effectiveness, thus requiring frequent cleaning. They do very little on the biological
contaminants and do nothing
for odors and gases.
No
wonder Consumer Reports was less than flattering in their discussion
about this type of purifier.
If you have
one
or more of these,
Sharper Image has a return policy. See
if it’s not too late to get your money back.
Electrostatic
Precipitators –
Oreck
makes this type of air purifier. Yep,
the vacuum cleaner company who decided
if they can clean carpets, they could clean air as well. Go
figure.
While they
are on the right track by saying that you
have to “Move air
to clean it,” their units do nothing but collect airborne
dust
and large
particles.
They are only
minimally
effective on biological contaminants and again, do nothing
for odors and gases.
Like ionizers,
once
the collection trays get dirty,
they lose their
ability to attract and collect additional particles.
Not only that, if the collection trays are dirty, these
charged
particles pass right through the Oreck and end up sticking to your
walls, furniture, and even you. Having
heard from countless smokers who have
purchased the Oreck, their homes still smelled like smoke. Oh
yeah, coverage is up to 500 square feet
making multiple units a requirement once again.
Combination Air
Purifiers
-
Some
companies have started
combining a number of technologies in an attempt to handle the full
spectrum of
pollutants.
While they cover
a more
complete group of pollutants, they are often VERY expensive to purchase
AND more
so to maintain.
They often
combine
ionization, HEPA filters, sometimes UV, along with carbon filters to
remove
odors.
Unfortunately
because they are
stand alone machines, they are often noisy and cover only a small area
making
multiple machines necessary to handle an entire home. You
can go this way and get pretty close to
the full spectrum of coverage, but I wouldn’t recommend it
due to
the initial
expense, ongoing filter costs and limited coverage area.
Whole
House Air Cleaners –
Some heating and air conditioning
contractors will
offer you a whole house air cleaner that needs to be installed into
your
furnace.
They typically
use a heated
probe that simply burns the airborne dust as it passes through the air
cleaner.
Honeywell is one
of those
household names that you may be familiar with. While
this type of unit may slightly reduce the dust
in your home,
again, biological contaminants are not affected, and odors and gases
simply
pass right through.
An expensive
option
for SOME dust reduction.
Whole
House HEPA Filters - My mom
spent about $2,000 on one of these.
It required expensive ductwork reconfiguration, the filters
are
VERY expensive and they are only partially effective against
particulate. Here's why. If you were to put a
quality HEPA
filter inline with your system, you would reduce the airflow so much
that your system would grind to a halt. You need to pull a
certain amount of air into the returns for your system to work well.
The engineers "solved this problem" by creating a bypass
system
where they route about 30% of the airflow through the HEPA allowing 70%
to flow through unfiltered. It assumes that after multiple
passes, you will get most of the particulate. Sure, this
allows
for less airflow restriction, but it also allows 70% of the air to pass
through unfiltered. An expensive and unacceptable option in
my
book.
A
quick warning:
Most
heating and air conditioning
contractors offer air cleaners or whole house HEPA systems, but they
are not qualified to advise
you in this area. Just call a few and ask them about air
cleaners. Most know the cost, how to install them and that they will
reduce the dust levels in your home, but get more specific and
they
can't provide the answers. |