Foo - Air purifier

Can anyone recommend a really good air purifier?

Here's my situation. I live in a small one bedroom apt....roughly 600 sq/ft or so. I leave my house at 7:30am and do not get back until 7pm almost every night. So basically, my apt gets very little foot traffic.

I try to clean the place about once a month (down on my hands & knees using Mr. Clean to scrub the floor....linoleum).

I also use the Swifter to get rid of hair/lint/dust, etc. But for some reason, if I don’t use the Swifter every week, my place is full of dust & hairballs & lint!

Think about it. I’m only home 12 hours a day. And I spend 7 out of those 12 hours sleeping. So the only time that I’m moving around the house is from 7pm – midnight. And this is just the average. There are other times when I go out and don’t get home until 10 – 11pm. So, I’m really not home much.

But where the hell is the dust/lint/hairballs coming from? I don’t wear shoes in the house either. Linoleum floor sucks. You can see a spec of dirt from a mile away.

I was thinking, maybe something like an air purifier may help….to circulate the air plus to filter out the dust/lint/hairballs.

What do you think? Can anyone recommend a really good air purifier? Or suggest a better solution?

Perhaps you are not aware of the "foot traffic" that your apartment gets when you're not there :o

My room gets this blueish lent stuff and it comes stright from the attack:mad:

I use the Ionic breeze quadra system=D

I got it from the sharper image for a hundred or two dollors. Works awesome

I say just get a good floor fan with a HEPA filter, or if you have central heating/cooling to get one installed on the heating/ac unit.

I replaced the filter in my apt's central air with a HEPA, and couldn't be happier.

TexesGuy, are you saying that "unkchunk" is speaking the truth from this thread? See post #37 http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=172168&page=2&pp=25&highlight=people

EJ123, where's the blueish lint coming from? Thanks for the Ionic Breeze suggestion. I'll check it out. How does it work? How often do you have to change the filter material? And are the filters expensive?

Catatonic, thanks for the HEPA filter suggestion. Unfortunately, I don't have central air. I live in a house that was built in 1901 (no joke. I wished it was from the late 1800s.....this way, I can tell people that I live in a house that was built in the 19th century). We have old radiators. :)

I think the lint comes from the derranged heater.

The thingy shoots out ions or something lol. Its really cool cause when the fans not on you can smell the ions and its really good. I heard breathing in those ions help with makin you have energy or something like that, or sleep better... It has those metal steel plates where the dust and dirt stick to it, so i dont need filters. I clean it about every week but its boring lol. Hes a pic of it ahah http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y251/viperfx10/dp.jpg

wow i take a pic of my air purifier on a saturday night!! sad huh=(

For serious dust removal, get a small vacuum cleaner to suck up all the dirt weekly. Then get a vornado air purifier. They make the best fans in the world and their purifiers use the same technology, it really stirs up the air. I have one and its pretty nice. The filters are humongous and last a long time.

CADD,

Then just buy a box fan that can fit a HEPA filter. Just keep it at low speed, and it will work wonders. Also keeps your apt a few degrees cooler in the summer without using as much juice as an AC unit.

After doing a little research on the web, I decided to purchase the Alen A350.

Here's are the test results if anyone is interested http://overture.air-purifiers-america.com/ed_APA_test_results.asp

http://overture.air-purifiers-america.com/images/ed_APA4.gif

I'll post a follow up in a month or so after using this product and let you folks know if it solves my problem.

Thanks for all the advice. http://www.clublexus.com/forums/images/smilies/thumbsup.gif

Every time I come up with something it turns out to be true. Since it's happening to you too, there must be people who hang out at my apartment during the day. I'm going to try and see if they can be productive in some way, by leaving out my tax forms and such. Although leaving the vaccum cleaner out hasn't work so far.

Hmm seems I have a crap one ahahah. At least mine didnt cost 449:D

I have a similar dust problem. I found the easiest/cheapest solution was to not care.

Same goes for the dirty dishes in my sink. And the pile of laundry on my bedroom floor.

sweet. Ill have to get one of those if i ever have a spare 1/2 k

For you technical/engineering folks, how big is 0.3 microns?

For you technical/engineering folks, how big is 0.3 microns?
ummm tiny ?


The micron, officially obsolete as a term of measurement, is sometimes used by microchip and wiring manufacturers in place of micrometer, one-millionth of a meter. The micron or micrometer can also be expressed as:
10-6 meter
One thousandth of a millimeter
One 25th of a thousandth of an inch

As long as its HEPA rated, you're good.

Just checking Consumer Reports (I have online subscription)....looks like the best bet is:
Friedrich C-90B. It gets their best rating, also has the lowest annual cost (filters, etc...). Of course it does have a $500 price tag.

Just checked the ionizing ones.....Friedrich C-90A comes in top there. :)

For you technical/engineering folks, how big is 0.3 microns?

Think of it as a millimillimeter.
10^-6m.

Think of it as a millimillimeter.
10^-6m.
And then a third (.3) of one of those.

So, I guessing dust & hairballs are larger than that right?

Actually a HEPA filter would not usually get to see dust that big. There's usually a prefilter in front of that to catch hairballs and dustballs.
0.3 microns is pretty freaking small.
Think of it this way, the period that you see here . yes that period, is around 350 microns or so on most 17-19" screens.
Take a 0.5mm lead pencil, that lead is 500 microns. Scuff up the lead tip to a fine point, that's anywhere from 50-100 microns.
Dust you can see in the air starts at 10-20 microns. Most HEPA filters are by default submicron to be HEPA so it doesn't matter which one you buy, they'll all do a good job of it.
The important part is how loud, how many cfm's, and how dispersive the air pattern is.
Ideally, the perfect filter would be quiet with a lot of cfm's and stir up a lot of air. A filter of these qualities would have a large stable fan, shaped fins that direct air flow, and a HEPA sheet with a large area to reduce intake velocity/turbulence (noise).
If you have a lot of problems with visible dust, large chunks of it then the best approach would be done in 3 stages. You would first use a vacuum of some type of clean up the large visible chunks of dust. Then you need to wipe the dust off everything with a damp towel. Afterwards, leave the room and run the air filter on high for about an hour. Repeat this once a week for a month or two and that should get rid of the base levels of dust. Then you only need to run the filter on low every few days and wipe down every 2 weeks or so to get rid of residual dust.