Consumer Alert: Please Read This Before Purchasing an Air Cleaner

Air Cleaner buyers face a maze of advertising hype and questionable marketing practices.

Air purifier reviews often emphasize selling points in a one sided manner.

Here lie both danger and opportunity.

A perfect opportunity to improve our health and well being also exists. I believe we can all benefit from a plan to improve indoor air quality, which includes carefully chosen purifiers.

The majority of people buying purifiers have wasted their money, naively buying over-hyped products they saw on TV infomercials. Many of these folks go straight from viewing the TV ads to the purchase without careful product comparison.

Many air cleaners have been sold via multilevel marketing, although MLM is currently in decline.

Machines sold through these marketing channels do little cleaning and even less to improve health.

The ads cost millions, so the consumers pay even more for the “stylish" products.

Give these vendors credit for running a clever marketing campaign, but don’t give them your credit card!

Objective Information?

A second group of buyers researches diligently, only to be lead astray by web content which is deliberately spurious, misleading, offers an incomplete view, or is simply incompetent.

They enter "air purifier reviews" into their favorite search engine, looking for information.

Their search lists over 1,000 air cleaners with a bewildering array of makes, models, and cleaning technologies. The vast majority of these products lack the market penetration required for deep and broad product support and reliable customer service.

While there are many good purification vendors and honest air cleaner reviewers, clicking most search engine results is an annoying waste of time.

Worse yet, most "reviews" are posted on sites selling the air cleaners they rate the highest. Some even have hidden proprietary interests in the machines their site evaluates.

In recent years, former marketing-over-substance leaders Oreck and Sharper Image have fallen by the wayside, but the rise of imports from China, most rebranded with only cryptic product background, has kept the consumer in the dark.

In the recession of 2009, many dealers closed, hundreds of models were discontinued, support evaporated, warranty claim payouts shrank, and replacement filters dried up. In 2010-2011, the market consolidation continued.

Buyers should beware "deals" on discontinued equipment and obscure builders/vendors.

Established "American" brands are increasingly being licensed to firms operating in Asia. These are then re-engineered for mainland China manufacture and reintroduced in the US market as the familiar brand.

Deliberately obscure jargon abounds in air cleaning world, with confusing acronyms everywhere; HEPA, CADR, VOC, AHAM, and more.

By clicking Air-Purifier-Power.com you have joined the third group, the informed consumers seeking power over their own lives.

Let’s work smarter and harder. It's time we cleaned the air along the Information Superhighway.

My name is Ed.

I've been a ceaseless campaigner against dangerous products most of my adult life.

I offer detailed knowledge gained the hard way: through a 40 year struggle against multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS), chronic fatigue (CFIDS) and Fibromyalgia.

I have a different viewpoint: a coal-mine canary of the first degree,

I can smell an idling diesel, a cigarette, or excess perfume on either gender, from far away. I must avoid these airborne toxins, just to keep the health gains I have made.

My first attempt to purify air was a simple ionizer, mail-ordered from the then-embryonic Sharper Image, after viewing a glossy 1977 magazine ad.

I bought my first purifier without any research - there were literally no consumer resources dedicated to air quality, and the internet didn't exist.

Of course, back then there were no air purifier reviews.

But there was a universal belief, cultivated by propaganda since the 1950's, in "progress through chemistry".

This blinded many, especially in the scientific and medical institutions, to dangers that common sense should have revealed.

Since that time I have learned a key truth about wellness, which is what makes this site different:

“What you can’t see does hurt you.”

I believe that allergy, asthma, MCS, and many other health problems have subtle environmental causes.

Everyday exposures to unseen pollutants in our air, water, and food, as well as rapidly evolving microorganisms, are more important than the dust we can see and odors we can smell.

Everyone has seen dust particles dancing in a shaft of sunlight in their home. Who could ignore lingering smoke, even in a nightclub?

The dirty little secret of the industry is this:

Most purifiers cannot completely remove

fine lung-penetrating particles,

lingering odors, toxic volatile gasses,

or secondhand smoke.

So much of the air cleaner industry

concentrates on products

which simply make things look clean

by collecting large sized particles - just visible dust!

Hey, any average HEPA-filtered vacuum cleaner can do that!

And this leads us to the second important insight - a HEPA filter is expired when it fills with enough particles to obstruct airflow, not when it is simply discolored or an arbitrary time limit is reached.

HEPAs are designed to retain tiny .3 micron sized particles. If we have poor prefiltering, as many inexpensive air cleaners do, the main filter will fill rapidly with 5 to 20 micron large dust and need frequent replacement.

This allows lower quality air cleaners to be sold as loss leaders for high-priced filter replacements.

Many of these bargain air purifiers have long term costs of ownership higher than some premium marques.

The third key to air purifier success is ignore the industry's room size ratings - most users are over-installing their air purifiers, falsely believing this is economical.

Installed in too large a space, most air cleaners will fail to lower pollutant levels appreciably.

Together we can see beyond the industry's smokescreen and seek effective solutions to these unseen dangers. I promise to dig deep, searching online and hard-to-find offline resources, to find the evidence you need.

A systematic approach, starting with locating and removing pollution sources, as well as adequate ventilation, should accompany the use of air cleaners.

Inside an Air Purifier

In the photo below, I have disassembled a favorite air purifier.

It's air purifier cleaning time, and the arrows show accumulated dirt. The blue arrow points to the dusty washable carbon filter bag, red to the air cleaner's permanent prefilter, and yellow to the still-clean HEPA filter.

This air cleaner has run seven years without needing filter replacements.

To control operating costs, I have refilled the carbon filter bag ($15) and keep coarse visible dust out of the HEPA by frequently cleaning the prefilter screen.

Again, the "secret" to long HEPA filter life is keeping particles above 5 microns, large dust, from filling the gaps in a filter intended for tiny sub-micron particles.

I do this by modifying the filter train, adding extra prefilter layers when I think the purifier is built well enough to handle the load, and cleaning the prefilters frequently.

Also, examining the area around the fan reveals no accumulation of fine particles, indicative of a quality air cleaner (minimal bypassing).

Most reviewers provide what is essentially a sales brochure. For some lower sales volume air cleaners, it's hard to find more.

But where there is real data to review, digging deep through web search results will uncover it. This site generally has about 80 in-depth purifier reviews - new products achieve reviewable sales levels as others decline and are eventually discontinued.

Air Purifier "Tests"

I cannot buy every air cleaner, or conduct "laboratory" tests.

I am using a Dylos DC1100 "for air purifier test" particle counter for reviews on products I have on test. This $350 laser counter is a great tool for consumer-level indoor air management.

Use of the particle counter has opened my eyes to another secret - quiet low speed operation rarely achieves or maintains truly clean air. This means that many automated systems, some of my favorites, are NOT keeping particle counts as low as they could be.

I am buying air purifiers periodically, and running/testing them in my family's 5 homes.

New in 2012;
Honeywell HHT-011,
Hoover WH10600 TIO2.

Purifier purchases from 2010 are pictured in my rural cabin's living room. Reviews have been posted.

From the left;

Sharp Plasmacluster KC-C150U.
Winix Plasmawave 5300,
Coway AP-1009CH,
RabbitAir BioGS 421A,
Sharp Plasmacluster FP-P40CX.

These join existing long term tests;

IQAir HealthPro Plus - 2009,
Hunter Permalife 30748 - 2009,
IQair HealthPro Plus - 2005,
Sharp Plasmacluster FP-N60CX - 2005,
Holmes HAP-242 - 2003,
Honeywell 50250 - 2003,
(3)Holmes HAP-240 - 2001,
Honeywell 12250 - 2001,
Sunbeam Air Purifier - 1999.

Suggested Plan

A key concept is the "reintroduction rate."

As the first step in your new health protecting strategy, complete indoor pollutant removal is needed.

Please remove volatile chemicals, a long list of "safe" household products, from your residential space.

No system for purification has been invented that can completely protect against smoke, which saturates the indoors and has a high reintroduction rate. Most purification machines cannot remove carbon monoxide, from indoor burning of any kind.

Please consider removing other impurities caused by combustion; gas appliances, woodstoves, candles, incense, all indoor burning.

Beloved pets and family smokers can be managed, but no filter can provide complete cleansing where continuous source reintroduction is present.

This website is not just about reviewing purifiers, it is about using knowledge of hidden dangers to improve our lives.

Self-empowerment begins with a realistic appraisal of current circumstances.

Future decisions which affect health can be made from a position of strength.

Over time, a comprehensive indoor environmental quality plan can be developed.

Facts become information, information becomes knowledge, and knowledge is power.

This site contains no pop-up ads, no opt-in advertising lists, no other marketing communications. Please consider adding Air-Purifier-Power to your bookmarks for easy return access.

Air-purifier-power is proud to be sponsored by www.sylvane.com, an established and reputable online purifier vendor.

I have been approached by several air purifier manufacturers and vendors, each offering lucrative deals in return for a bias in editorial policies.

The president of Sylvane is a fellow allergy sufferer and advertises here with no attempt to compromise the site's objectivity.