Air Purifiers

[Vincenzo Corleone]

I'm looking into buying an air purifier for our home. We live in a one-level apartment that has two bedrooms and a dining room, and is approximately a little over 1,000 sq. ft. in total.

My question: can I buy one unit that claims to cover 1,000 sq. ft. or more, or should I buy a unit for each room that covers their respective square footage?

 

[Vincenzo Corleone]

Thanks for bringing up air purifiers.

I am thinking of making my own cheap air purifier. A 20 inch box fan with a HEPA quality filter taped to it. I don't need the filter all the time, just when the air stream brings smoke from Canadian and California wildfires into my area.

If anybody has tried this, I am wondering how well it worked for you.

So, you're hijacking my thread. Great.

 

[pacergal]

I bought room air purifiers with UV light filtration for our house. I just think the walls close off too much for a "whole house" type to work. Plus it was less expensive to buy several smaller ones, than a whole house. Although replacing filters is a bit more!
Small, quiet, easy to use. Vacuum the carbon filter every month, replace the hepa one every 5-6 months or so.
check out Germ Guardian brand, thats what I bought.

 

[donheff]

I suppose it depends on what you are trying to achieve. If you want the air in every room cleaned and recirculated on a routine basis individual units would probably be best. If you are concerned about coronavirus and want to be able to invite someone into your living room, that's a different matter. I wanted to be more comfortable inviting my daughter and new grand daughter into the house during the cold months. I got an extra large room HEPA filter for our first floor. I only turn it on when my daughter (or a couple of other people) is in the house. I call it my "Fauci filter" because I read an interview with Fauci where he mentioned that he had one and felt comfortable inviting his very cautious neighbor into the house in the cold months. They wear masks except when eating and act like they are in the back yard. I suspect he might recommend more caution with the more infectious virus variant floating around.

The air purifier I got covers about 2000 sq ft. My first floor is less than half that. I still invite my daughter in despite the more contagious variant, but then DW and I got our first shot of Moderna the other day.

 

[Car-Guy]

I bought one of these IQAir machines several years ago and it works for us in our 2000sf house. I think this unit was rated well under that but it seems to do the job pretty well. I know some manufacturers make units that can be fitted to your central air and cover the entire house and probably do a better job but at a higher cost... However, knowing what I know now and based on my experience with the IQAir, if I only needed to filter 1000sq I'd go with this one. YMMV

Cost between 900 and 1000 at most places... I got mine on sale for about 800 but that was a few years back.

 

[Vincenzo Corleone]

Thanks for the replies, everyone.

To clarify: my main motivation for buying an air purifier is for dust. For some reason, our home accumulates a lot of dust in a relatively short period of time, even during the winter season like now, when we usually keep all of our windows closed. I'm hoping an air purifier will help out with that.

 

[Ready]

Thanks for the replies, everyone.

To clarify: my main motivation for buying an air purifier is for dust. For some reason, our home accumulates a lot of dust in a relatively short period of time, even during the winter season like now, when we usually keep all of our windows closed. I'm hoping an air purifier will help out with that.

Air purifiers won’t have any effect on dust that settles on the floor. You will still have to vacuum to remove that dust.

I have two IQAir Perfect 16 units integrated into our HVAC system, as well as one IQAir Health Pro Plus in the bedroom. They work very well at reducing the particle count in the air but they have no effect on dust that settles on the floor.

From what I’ve read, HEPA filters will not trap the COVID-19 virus particles because they are too small.

This website was very helpful for me when I was researching air purifiers:

IQ Air Purifier: IQAir HealthPro Plus Air Purifier Review

 

[Car-Guy]

Air purifiers won’t have any effect on dust that settles on the floor. You will still have to vacuum to remove that dust.

+1 That's been my experaince too...

 

[donheff]

Air purifiers won’t have any effect on dust that settles on the floor. You will still have to vacuum to remove that dust.

I have two IQAir Perfect 16 units integrated into our HVAC system, as well as one IQAir Health Pro Plus in the bedroom. They work very well at reducing the particle count in the air but they have no effect on dust that settles on the floor.

From what I’ve read, HEPA filters will not trap the COVID-19 virus particles because they are too small.

This website was very helpful for me when I was researching air purifiers:

IQ Air Purifier: IQAir HealthPro Plus Air Purifier Review

I read a comprehensive article some time back that said HEPA filters are very good for the virus. I can’t remember the details but something to the effect that the virus particles are not floating free individually but are clumped with water in aerosol aggregations that are very susceptible to the electrostatic attraction of the filters- or some such interaction. What reassured me the most was Fauci’s remarks on HEPA filters. I ordered one the day I heard him.

 

[Ready]

I read a comprehensive article some time back that said HEPA filters are very good for the virus. I can’t remember the details but something to the effect that the virus particles are not floating free individually but are clumped with water in aerosol aggregations that are very susceptible to the electrostatic attraction of the filters- or some such interaction. What reassured me the most was Fauci’s remarks on HEPA filters. I ordered one the day I heard him.

I’ve seen some articles with similar results. So I’d say it certainly can’t hurt to run a HEPA filter if you are concerned about COVID. But from a practical standpoint I don’t see how it’s going to help in your home.

If you don’t have anyone in your home infected with COVID, there would not be any COVID virus in your home.

If you have someone enter your home who is infected, the air purifier would need to be between you and the infected person to have any chance of catching the virus particles. If the purifier is off in a corner and you are in close contact with the person, the air purifier is not going to capture the particles from across the room.

So while the air purifier is not completely ineffective, it’s not nearly as effective as either quarantining a positive person who is in your home or having both of you wear masks while in the same room.

 

[Vincenzo Corleone]

Well, I ordered one to cover just my living room to see how it does with lessening the airborne dust particles. If I see that it's helping, I'll order separate units for the bedrooms.

And since we're not allowing anyone into our home, I'm not concerned about whether or not it'll help with Covid.

I do have a concern when it comes to the humidity level in our home. The humidity level goes down into the teens during the winter months, and my eczema absolutely hates it. I really suffer. I bought a humidifier and now we're able to maintain a humidity level of 50% which keeps my eczema at bay.

Would an air purifier negate the effects of the humidifier?

 

[statsman]

Would an air purifier negate the effects of the humidifier?

No. An air filter will have very little if any impact on overall humidity.

 

[Ready]

Well, I ordered one to cover just my living room to see how it does with lessening the airborne dust particles. If I see that it's helping, I'll order separate units for the bedrooms.

And since we're not allowing anyone into our home, I'm not concerned about whether or not it'll help with Covid.

I do have a concern when it comes to the humidity level in our home. The humidity level goes down into the teens during the winter months, and my eczema absolutely hates it. I really suffer. I bought a humidifier and now we're able to maintain a humidity level of 50% which keeps my eczema at bay.

Would an air purifier negate the effects of the humidifier?

An air purifier has no effect on humidity levels. As far as seeing if it is helping, the only way you will know if it’s working is if you buy an air particle counter. I use this one:

https://www.amazon.com/Dylos-DC1100...ds=Air+particle+counter&qid=1610766910&sr=8-8

During bad air quality days if I turn on my air particle counter I will see readings above 4,000. Healthy air quality is anything below 150. I then turn on the air filters and watch the numbers go down until I see the numbers drop below 150. Then I know it’s safe to turn them down or off for a bit. There is no visual way to see if an air purifier is working because our eyes can not detect ultra fine particles floating in the air.

 

[Vincenzo Corleone]

Thanks, everybody. Maybe I'll update this thread at some point with my observations after having used it for a while.

 

[timo2]

Thanks for the replies, everyone.

To clarify: my main motivation for buying an air purifier is for dust. For some reason, our home accumulates a lot of dust in a relatively short period of time, even during the winter season like now, when we usually keep all of our windows closed. I'm hoping an air purifier will help out with that.

We found an air purifier helped with dust. We also have a problem with dust. We live in sandy New Mexico and two large dogs coming in and out. Plus the house is a recent build energy efficient, so once some dust gets in the house it stays. We only use a MERV 7 HVAC filter to avoid overtaxing the HVAC system. After researching air filters I couldn't decide, so I bought what Costco had, the Winix brand. We now would recommend that brand. They are quiet and clearly do the job we needed them to do. And since we have had them our HVAC filter has less dirt and dog hair in it.

Our Master Bedroom doesn't ventilate well and DW was having snoring and dust issues, so we purchased the "Winix C555 Air Cleaner with PlasmaWave Technology" from Costco. It covers around 370 sq. ft. We are totally impressed. We can tell walking into the room that the air was cleaner or fresher than the rest of the house.

More of interest to you will be the second unit we purchased at Costco, the 'Winix Tower XQ Air Purifier', for $570. It says it is tested at 698 sq ft, but we have a 1000 sq ft living room/kitchen area we put it in. It does the job, even though it is at the maximum size for the unit. I did research it and there were other users with this unit placed in areas up to 1000 sq. ft. We are happy with it. Because the air circulation is good in that area, we didn't notice the dramatic difference we saw in the Master Bedroom, but we certainly can tell the difference in the air quality, especially with the kitchen in the area.

We purchased a third Winix C555 unit for the office area I work in most the day. It will often have a person and two 60 lb dogs in it for several hours every day. It helped there also.

So the air filters we purchased helped reduce the dust in the house. Before we had them, we would see the dust floating in the the streams of sunlight coming in the windows. After we started using the air filters, we no longer see dust in the sunlight streams. Plus our sinuses tell us the dust is gone.

 

[Boho]

You need one or more for each room. The larger the better. I've had the Honeywell HPA300 for about 6 years and I recently checked the ratings again. It's still one of the two best. It's made for a big room, not my little bedroom, but I wish I had two for my little bedroom. If there's dust three feet away, don't expect it to be heading toward the air cleaner. I'm disappointed, but it's the best so there's nothing I can do about it.

 

[Vincenzo Corleone]

You need one or more for each room. The larger the better. I've had the Honeywell HPA300 for about 6 years and I recently checked the ratings again. It's still one of the two best. It's made for a big room, not my little bedroom, but I wish I had two for my little bedroom. If there's dust three feet away, don't expect it to be heading toward the air cleaner. I'm disappointed, but it's the best so there's nothing I can do about it.

The evaporative humidifier we have is a Honeywell and we're really happy with it.

I was about to go with the Honeywell purifier, but I bought this purifier instead on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01D8DAYII/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It had the most number of ratings for a unit that covers the area the size I need (12,511 ratings) with a score of 4.7 out of 5. I figured that was a good sign. I hope I'm right.

 

[Telly]

Thanks for the replies, everyone.

To clarify: my main motivation for buying an air purifier is for dust. For some reason, our home accumulates a lot of dust in a relatively short period of time, even during the winter season like now, when we usually keep all of our windows closed. I'm hoping an air purifier will help out with that.

About 15 years ago, as I was installing a new furnace/AC for part of the house, I installed a Honeywell F300 "Electronic Air Cleaner" (Electrostatic precipitator is the non-marketing name for this kind of device). It is the gold standard for precipitators. I installed it between the return air plenum and the inlet side of the furnace. It has an expanded-mesh pre-filter, then the precipitator cells, and then a fine-cellular post-filter, all washable. It helps remove smoke smells, cooking smells, and collects on the cells a layer of really fine dust.

It has had zero effect on the amount of dust that collects on horizontal surfaces. I suspect that dust is too heavy to stay airborne long enough to make it into air returns to get filtered out. I once looked at a sample of our house surfaces dust through a microscope. It is a universal gray color, and is fibrous under magnification.

We once got a very fine non-fibrous beige-colored dust settling in one specific room during summers, I traced that to skylight seals that had dried out and decayed, allowing wind-blown dust from outside to filter in.

 

[Vincenzo Corleone]

It has had zero effect on the amount of dust that collects on horizontal surfaces. I suspect that dust is too heavy to stay airborne long enough to make it into air returns to get filtered out. I once looked at a sample of our house surfaces dust through a microscope. It is a universal gray color, and is fibrous under magnification.

We once got a very fine non-fibrous beige-colored dust settling in one specific room during summers, I traced that to skylight seals that had dried out and decayed, allowing wind-blown dust from outside to filter in.

Wow, great detective work. Although your post is discouraging. Our walls are drywall and I've been wondering if the dust is caused by it. I wouldn't even know how to go about how to confirm my suspicions.

 

[Badger]

Air purifiers won’t have any effect on dust that settles on the floor. You will still have to vacuum to remove that dust.

Having replaced all the flooring in the house with either tile or hardwood years ago and have leather and wood furniture, we don't have anywhere near the dust as in the past even though we live in Fl near the ocean.
Dust on the floor is easy to control now with just a robotic vacuum. Occasionally I will run an air purifier on high, turn the ceiling fan on high and close the room off. After an hour most any dust in the room will be stirred up and sucked through the air purifier.
What I would like now is a UV-C lights installed in the return plenum of the HVAC system. Problem is it is made from that foil covered insulation and I am not sure how that material will support the light.


Cheers!

 

[donheff]

I’ve seen some articles with similar results. So I’d say it certainly can’t hurt to run a HEPA filter if you are concerned about COVID. But from a practical standpoint I don’t see how it’s going to help in your home.

If you don’t have anyone in your home infected with COVID, there would not be any COVID virus in your home.

If you have someone enter your home who is infected, the air purifier would need to be between you and the infected person to have any chance of catching the virus particles. If the purifier is off in a corner and you are in close contact with the person, the air purifier is not going to capture the particles from across the room.

So while the air purifier is not completely ineffective, it’s not nearly as effective as either quarantining a positive person who is in your home or having both of you wear masks while in the same room.

But I do have someone in my house. My daughter and her 4 month old baby. I have also had workers in for brief visits at various points. There is no way to know whether any of them have Covid so the risk is there.

Fauci's point was the filter improves the environment in situations like that. He suggested treating the filtered room like it is outdoors. Still wear masks and maintain distance. Crack a window to improve air circulation. Keep the visits relatively short. Keep the filter running for a period before and after the visit.

I have also needed to go to multiple medical appointments during Covid, including an MRI and a DATscan. Masks, social distancing, and, in many of those locations, HEPA air purification keeps staff and patients relatively safe. In these circumstances and at home using similar precautions if an exposure occurred the viral load would likely be reduced which may (probably, according to CDC) leads to less severe illness.

It is about acceptable risk. You may choose to never let anyone in your house in any circumstance. You may choose to forgo medical visits except for emergencies. I chose a lesser isolation that seemed reasonable.

 

[ERObjd]

we have had good luck with 2 AC350 air purifiers from Vornado.I think we got them at home depot or menards. About $80 each. The replacement HEPA filters are about $22 each but one can vacuum them out and probably make them go 2 -3 years thats what we do. They seem to do a good job filtering smoke as there were a few days with praire fires nearby our home and the smoke would get bad but no smoke in the house as those Vornado purifiers handled it well. for a true HEPA unit at a price point under $100 its hard to go wrong with Vornado IMO

 

[Boho]

With my supposedly "best" air cleaner, made for a large room, if a downstairs neighbor is smoking and my window is open an inch with the air cleaner on, I'll smell it. Hopefully it goes away faster with the air cleaner.

 

[RetiredAtThirty-eight]

During bad air quality days if I turn on my air particle counter I will see readings above 4,000. Healthy air quality is anything below 150. I then turn on the air filters and watch the numbers go down until I see the numbers drop below 150. Then I know it’s safe to turn them down or off for a bit. There is no visual way to see if an air purifier is working because our eyes can not detect ultra fine particles floating in the air.

I use a small laser if the room is dim or dark to judge the air quality. When the laser hits small particles floating in the air you get an easy to see "spark" of light. When the air has high particulate matter you can easily see the entire beam of light and thousands of sparkles which are the bigger particles. After running a HEPA filter for a while the laser beam is almost invisible with an occasional spark of reflected light from a stray piece of dust.

One of the most effective air purifiers (and cost effective in terms of total ownership cost) is the Coway AP-1512HH. Only consumes about 10 watts on medium and less on low but it can clean a substantial amount of air (designed for rooms up to 361 sq. ft. and I would say this is accurate).

It is very quiet (except on "High") and the little bit of sound it does make on medium is a very pleasing, very soft, pink noise. It's even quieter on "Low". It actually helps me to fall asleep on setting "Low" or "Med". But it's best feature is it has an auto mode where it uses it's built in air quality monitor to adjust the fan speed as needed. It works surprising well.

Filters are very reasonable cost and last a long time. I bought three Coway AP-1512HH's last November for only $150 each via Amazon (with free Prime shipping) but it looks like people are catching on to how good of a unit this is and the price has risen to $220. Maybe you will find it for less if you shop around. Always check filter prices before buying because some manufacturers use the ink-jet printer business model (cheap machine, expensive refills).

And to the OP's question, yes, you want one in every room if you don't have ductwork to support a whole house air purifier. If you put a high capacity unit in one location it will not do an effective job in other rooms if they are connected by a standard sized door.

 

[Vincenzo Corleone]

For anyone who has read this entire thread and may be interested - I've lived with my new air purifier for two weeks now and can say unequivocally that it does, in fact, help a great deal with the dust in our home. Even my wife, who is generally a sceptic, commented on it.