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I bought air purifiers for a pet-allergic family member who occasionally visits and because the air quality in my city is horrible. I love my IQ Air purifiers. They are expensive, but they work. My family is able to visit without developing trouble breathing. The air purifiers have helped my seasonal allergies too. I haven't taken allergy medicine in a few months.
Is your niece/nephew doing better with her/his allergies? And please let me know the brand you got! While the function IS the most important thing... I have to admit, a lot of these air purifiers I'm seeing online look hideous.
Thanks for the advice! However, how does one make her own filter and pre-filters? I'm assuming it's not a complicated process, since you are advising it.
Also, if you don't mind me asking, what is the brand of air cleaner you use? Is it loud?
The air-cleaners that I have bought used...usually are in great shape. I paid 5 bucks for a really, really nice AC that retails for 400 bucks. I think people buy these fancy ACs, use them until the filter needs to be replaced......then go out and price new filters (yikes, expensive) and then get rid of the AC after seeing the high filter prices. I have one of the large, barrel type ACs......it works GREAT, but a new filter would be more than 10 times the 5 bucks I paid for it.
I make my own filters. Are my home-made air-filters as good as the store bought HEPA filters........probably not, but they do a damn good job of cleaning the air. And the 2 big advantages I have are COST and I can change all of my filters as often as needed for pennies. If you buy a fancy HEPA filter for 50 bucks....you are probably going to let that baby stay in your AC for as long as possible, even when it is dirty, nasty and not doing much to clean the air.
Making a home made filter is really simple and they work great. To get your filters to work GREAT....I advise a 2 stage pre-filter setup and a 1 stage fine-filter. On my big AC, I have 2 stages of pre-filtering......the amount of dust, dirt and crud that these pre-filters catch after just 2 weeks is insane. For one layer of my pre-filter I use a black filter material that is designed to go on the intake of an
air-conditioner......buy it at Walmart very cheap and cut it to fit. Another pre-filter layer that I use is a very dense bath-towel that is doubled up. My fine-filter is 4 layers of paper towels. So on my ACs intake I have 2 pre-filters and 1 fine-filter. I also run the ionizer function when I am out of the house.
My sis told me after getting the air purifier my niece is sleeping peacefully and has less runny nose and red eyes. She is relieved that they don’t have to give away their pet. The name of the brand is Clair. She also got the purifier customized by putting the picture of my baby niece on the cover of the purifier. I must admit it looked way too cool for an air purifier.
The air-cleaners that I have bought used...usually are in great shape. I paid 5 bucks for a really, really nice AC that retails for 400 bucks. I think people buy these fancy ACs, use them until the filter needs to be replaced......then go out and price new filters (yikes, expensive) and then get rid of the AC after seeing the high filter prices. I have one of the large, barrel type ACs......it works GREAT, but a new filter would be more than 10 times the 5 bucks I paid for it.
I make my own filters. Are my home-made air-filters as good as the store bought HEPA filters........probably not, but they do a damn good job of cleaning the air. And the 2 big advantages I have are COST and I can change all of my filters as often as needed for pennies. If you buy a fancy HEPA filter for 50 bucks....you are probably going to let that baby stay in your AC for as long as possible, even when it is dirty, nasty and not doing much to clean the air.
Making a home made filter is really simple and they work great. To get your filters to work GREAT....I advise a 2 stage pre-filter setup and a 1 stage fine-filter. On my big AC, I have 2 stages of pre-filtering......the amount of dust, dirt and crud that these pre-filters catch after just 2 weeks is insane. For one layer of my pre-filter I use a black filter material that is designed to go on the intake of an
air-conditioner......buy it at Walmart very cheap and cut it to fit. Another pre-filter layer that I use is a very dense bath-towel that is doubled up. My fine-filter is 4 layers of paper towels. So on my ACs intake I have 2 pre-filters and 1 fine-filter. I also run the ionizer function when I am out of the house.
Thanks for all your help! I will definitely take it into consideration. However, to be honest, how confident are you that your set up is catching the smaller dust particles? I can see that your set up would sufficient for capturing every day dust (the kind you see sticking onto the blades of fans), but what about the really, really tiny ones? In my research, it seems that these smaller particles are actually the perpetrators of most health problems related to bad air.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cleopatra20
My sis told me after getting the air purifier my niece is sleeping peacefully and has less runny nose and red eyes. She is relieved that they don’t have to give away their pet. The name of the brand is Clair. She also got the purifier customized by putting the picture of my baby niece on the cover of the purifier. I must admit it looked way too cool for an air purifier.
I've gone through the website, and it seems quite nice. Just vacuuming the filter to clean it once a month is a nice touch as well. The design looks great, too! Thanks for your suggestion!
Thanks for all your help! I will definitely take it into consideration. However, to be honest, how confident are you that your set up is catching the smaller dust particles? I can see that your set up would sufficient for capturing every day dust (the kind you see sticking onto the blades of fans), but what about the really, really tiny ones? In my research, it seems that these smaller particles are actually the perpetrators of most health problems related to bad air.
I've gone through the website, and it seems quite nice. Just vacuuming the filter to clean it once a month is a nice touch as well. The design looks great, too! Thanks for your suggestion!
Well, Hepa filters are going to catch more..........how much more and does it matter?????? Not much more and it really is not going to make a difference IMHO. All of my ACs have ionizers......this is a big help in making dirt/dust/particles stick either to household surfaces or onto the pre-filters/filters. I make my main filter with dense paper towels, 4 layers..............between the ionizer, dual-layer pre-filters and 4 layer
main-filter....not much is coming out the cleaner exhaust.
If you want to be a real stickler for clean air......I would strongly suggest that you price-out HEPA filters for whatever system you are going to buy......and plan on changing them on a regular basis. Reusable Hepa filters are great......but they lose efficiency over time.
A big factor in how clean your air gets, is how much air your cleaner pulls through the filters per hour.......the more the better.........the bigger and stronger the intake/exhaust fan, the better.
The bigger air-cleaner units can be noisier.......but I would highly recommend getting a big, powerful unit. If the noise of a large air cleaner bothers you.......just run it on high or turbo mode (with ionizer on) when you are out of the house, run on low when you are home.
Thanks for all your help! I will definitely take it into consideration. However, to be honest, how confident are you that your set up is catching the smaller dust particles? I can see that your set up would sufficient for capturing every day dust (the kind you see sticking onto the blades of fans), but what about the really, really tiny ones? In my research, it seems that these smaller particles are actually the perpetrators of most health problems related to bad air.
I've gone through the website, and it seems quite nice. Just vacuuming the filter to clean it once a month is a nice touch as well. The design looks great, too! Thanks for your suggestion!
I was trying to figure out the website. I guess the link you shared is the right one. On ebay it costs $80 more . I agree the vacuuming bit makes it super easy to clean . Its not as noisy as the air purifiers I found in China (had been for a student field trip to China ) The pollution levels there are so high that they have these noisy ugly looking air purifiers in most of the places . On Clair website they have mentioned that it captures super fine dust smaller than 0.1 microns. I think that has to do with their patented e2f filter (I read this on their website). I guess Clair has the best design you should give it a shot and customize the front cover lid with your favorite picture
I was trying to figure out the website. I guess the link you shared is the right one. On ebay it costs $80 more . I agree the vacuuming bit makes it super easy to clean . Its not as noisy as the air purifiers I found in China (had been for a student field trip to China ) The pollution levels there are so high that they have these noisy ugly looking air purifiers in most of the places . On Clair website they have mentioned that it captures super fine dust smaller than 0.1 microns. I think that has to do with their patented e2f filter (I read this on their website). I guess Clair has the best design you should give it a shot and customize the front cover lid with your favorite picture
I will have to do a bit more research on my own about air purifiers, but so far, the clair air purifiers sound pretty good! Thanks for all the info! And I must admit, I really do like the design....
I will have to do a bit more research on my own about air purifiers, but so far, the clair air purifiers sound pretty good! Thanks for all the info! And I must admit, I really do like the design....
So, I was looking at the specs for the Clair air purifiers.
It shows the maximum power useage on high is a little under 6 Watts( this unit takes a 12v input via adapter). My AC has a max power rating of 110 watts in turbo mode.
I would try to find a CFM (cubic feet per minute) rating for the Clair, this is a very important number. I could not find a CFM spec on Clair's specification website or PDF manual. I really question how good a cleaner Clair could be seeing as it uses a maximum of less than 6 watts???
So, I was looking at the specs for the Clair air purifiers.
It shows the maximum power useage on high is a little under 6 Watts( this unit takes a 12v input via adapter). My AC has a max power rating of 110 watts in turbo mode.
I would try to find a CFM (cubic feet per minute) rating for the Clair, this is a very important number. I could not find a CFM spec on Clair's specification website or PDF manual. I really question how good a cleaner Clair could be seeing as it uses a maximum of less than 6 watts???
Well, it says that the coverage for the smaller one is 107 square feet, and 162 square feet for the larger one. The coverage area is quite small, so I guess I can understand why the power consumption is so low. I think another reason for the small power consumption might be because it's simply a fan blowing through the "e2f filter". I live in a small studio, so something smaller would definitely be okay with me. Then again, I am making assumptions on how it works, so I could be wrong!
Well, it says that the coverage for the smaller one is 107 square feet, and 162 square feet for the larger one. The coverage area is quite small, so I guess I can understand why the power consumption is so low. I think another reason for the small power consumption might be because it's simply a fan blowing through the "e2f filter". I live in a small studio, so something smaller would definitely be okay with me. Then again, I am making assumptions on how it works, so I could be wrong!
I mean, if you are going to spend money on something that is supposed to clean air....you might as well look into getting the most bang for your buck.
There are some key acronyms associated with air purifiers...........these are very important in determining how well an air purifier will clean the designated area. The area size recommendations that are usually on the box do not tell that great of a story(room size or square feet recommendation). Some of the more important terms that are associated with air purifiers are:
CFM = cubic feet per minute.
CADR = clean air delivery rate (a number, higher is better).
Negative Ionization = feature that help clean the air and makes filters last longer.
ACH = air changes per hour (this is an important number).
In my opinion, if you are going to spend retail for the Clair, about 220 bucks........you can spend a little more or look for the same price range, and get a MUCH better air cleaner.
Air purifiers can remove a number of airborne irritants, including mold spores, dust, pollen, odors, noxious fumes, bacteria, viruses, pet dander, and more. However, all of these substances require different strategies since there are so many different shapes and sizes of particles to deal with.
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