Best Air Filter For Dusty Home

My mom turns 78 today, and when I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she said an air cleaner. Something along the lines of one of those Sharper Image Ionic Breezes.

The problem with my mom is, to put it politely, her house is not very clean. She has over 40 years worth of junk stored in there. It's so bad you can't even close the doors and have to walk sideways in places. Three cats and a bird add to the smell and general filth. Our relatives won't stay in the house because everyone gets sick. O.K., that's a good thing. My eyes get red and I sneeze like crazy from all the dust, a problem I experience nowhere else. My sister can only stay in the house after taking a Claritin (spelling?) pill.

Please don't suggest I get my mother to clean the place or hire someone else to clean it. She is 78 and never listens to me. And, we did have some people come by to houseclean, but they quit!

Anyway, what would be the best aircleaner to capture a lot of dust and animal dander from the air? Smoke is not a problem, thank goodness. Noise would be a secondary factor, as would be ease of maintenance. Operating costs would also be a concern.

I've made previous inquiries about the Sharper Image units, and they got pretty mixed reviews, so I'm hoping there is something better out there. It seems the Honeywell HEPA filters are kind of a standard, does anyone have any experience with these? Also, I've heard some good word of mouth about two air cleaner Costco carries: the Breeze AT for $550, and the Living Air Classic for $669. Anyone know anything about these models?

Anything you could tell me about air filters would be greatly appreciated. If possible, I'd like to keep the price under $700 since I'm not exactly drowning in cash these days.

Bruise

Bruise, this is a gadget, but it's also the type of thing they seem to love to discuss in the Cafe. If you'd like, I can move it there for you. You'd probably attract more discussion.

Bruise

Although I don't have one, the Living Air Classic is supposed to be the best. There's no need to change a filter and one unit covers 3000 square feet. It's about the size of a small stereo speaker.

Marty

Empath,
I say move it. Interesting topic that as you said, it will get more discussion in the Cafe.

I had two of the previous generation Orecks and they lasted nearly 10 years. Oreck air purifier "Buy one get one at half price"
My Honeywell lasted 3 years.

Don't waste money on room filters, or standalone units. Build it into your Heating/cooling system. I use a "Spaceguard" filtration system (do a search on Spaceguard, I think they changed the name) which is close to HEPA filtration for particulate removal, it replaces the $0.99 filter in your air handler with a $45 pleated filter. Then I added a pair of UV germicidal tubes in the air handler. They kill most bacteria and mold, I have the air handler running 24 hours a day. Look on ebay for UV air sterilizers or purifiers, should be about $100 for a 13 watt unit. Mount them in your air handler above the cooling coil, you won't believe how well it cleans and removes odors. I smoke in my home office, so I run an Ozone generator in here - it is bad for any rubber belts (scanners) and too much is bad for your lungs, but it certainly kills the smoke smell. Works for me!
Rob

Do a search on the Ionic Breeze on Eopinions.com, it hasn't been well recieved.

i think consumer reports stated the ionic breeze thingy did not work well.

the best tested were the hepa filters--but they do tend to be expensive. i dont think they had tested the living air classic.

Bob

I experimented with the ion things a long time ago. They are quite fun to play with as you can generate huge static charges on things, but they don't do squat for cleaning the air.

I have owned a couple of hepa type filters of varying sizes and they have performed well. But the room ones really do add to the noise, even the best ones can be noisy.

I like the idea of a big whole house install of some big filters. I don't think you can get the same clearing of the dust that way though in the short term as your air handler doesn't normally run all the time and wouldn't recirculate the air as many times in the smaller rooms. I think a combination of the 2 is probably in order.

The UV/Ozone units are the only thing that gets rid of smoke. But ozone is a really nasty irritant in any concentration. If the house is already on the brink of alergy overload and you add ozone to the mix I'm afraid people will be even more miserable in the place.

The problem is that no matter how much you remove from the air there will always be twice as much sitting around. Just moving one stack of stuff from one end of the room to the other will undo all the work you have done. you may get some temporary imporovement until the filters clog, but with everything else in there you won't be able to fix the problem.

Hello Bruise,

In the summer we tend to just open up the house and air it out.

In the winter we have a Com Air Eagle 5000 unit. It works quite well. You have to clean in out and learn the best settings, but once set it works fine. It does have an adjustable fan, so there is some noise. We use the unit in our combination living/dining room.

The rest of the house has an electronic filter built into the central heating unit.

Tom

I think the best is a whole house filter mentioned previously. I'm not familiar with the hepa for $45. Seems very inexpensive. I enjoy, if your duct size can take it, the electrostatic cleaners that slip into the duct. I think there are various sizes that can be procured for just about any size with little modification needed.
If $700 is your limit you're in good shape.
A whole house needs ductiong so we're talking Hot air heating or complete cooling system that you can operate the fan independently of the heat or cooling.
If you have baseboard or no duct system than a standalone Hepa system is what you need for practically each room.
The hepa's have a prefilter that needs to be cleaned or replaced. In this environment the cleaning/replacing will be often for quite a while till the dust and particulates have been removed.
I have several Honeywell's in service 24/7 for ~ 5 years. The prefilters are washed or air blown then replaced. I'm on my second set of HEPA in one unit and the original HEPA on two others.
They are noisy.
The ion filters are great for odors but do nothing in the use you describe /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif
Be sure you let us know what you end up with, Bruise
Tom
Tom

I rely on my nose hairs. That's what they are for aren't they?? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

3M Filtrete are pretty good. I think they also have a HEPA version, these are for the furnace not stand alone units.

[ QUOTE ]
robk said:
it is bad for any rubber belts (scanners)

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't forget Ink Jets, they have belts too.

What you need is one of these: Electra Silver and Gold. While our house isn't quite as bad as your moms, we've lived here for 17 years so it can be a bit dusty at times. Those filters aern't the magical cure-all, but they do help quite a bit. You could also look into getting her ducts cleaned while you're at it. This is assuming she has duct-based heating and cooling. If you do get one of these filters make sure it's installed correct! We're on our second. Our first was installed a few years ago on our old furnace but the installer did a **** poor job installing it (The filter was sized incorrectly. He just cut a hole in the duct work next to the furnace and shoved it in) which contributed to the demise of our furnace (Heat enchanger cracked) and, once the furnace broke, contributed to the generation of enormous ammonts of carbon monoxide. The only catch is that you have to clean them. We have an hour meter on our thermostat, after the furnace and/or AC has run for about 140 hours "Filter" shows up on the LCD. Cleaning is easy though, you just take it outside and flush it with water, dry, and re-install.

Another thing that might help is a Vacuum with a decent filtering system on it. Then if you could get her to vacuum a bit the dust would go into the filters as opposed to out into the air again.

As per my advice you must go for HEPA filter as this has long life and also has the capability to catch indoor dust up to 99.9%. This filter if maintained properly can cover more than 4 years.

WOW! You went way back in the locker to bring this thread back on deck.

:welcome: Davidjones.

~ Chance

a note about germicidal UVC bulbs -

The older ones allowed multiple UVC wavelengths through the envelope, and one of those wavelengths, 185nm, was the primary culprit for producing ozone as it reacted with oxygen molecules in the air. They used to be called ozone lamps for this reason.

Newer UVC bulbs have a more carefully engineered envelope glass composition that selectively attenuates the primary ozone-generating wavelength while allowing other germicidal wavelengths to pass through. See this FAQ, particularly question #13.

Costco has a standing price for a 3 pack of Filtrete 1900 [16x25x1, 20x25x1] for $40, and intermittently offers that same pack for $30.
I wouldn't use any Filtrete less than 1500.

MichaelW said:

Costco has a standing price for a 3 pack of Filtrete 1900 [16x25x1, 20x25x1] for $40, and intermittently offers that same pack for $30.
I wouldn't use any Filtrete less than 1500.

Click to expand...

I went with the 3M 600 or 1000 as a middle of the road option. I think it's possible to "choke" your furnace and restrict the air so that it's just not efficient. It depends on your actual unit I'm sure. I don't know much about mine but the HVAC guy recommended 1200 max on mine.

Still dusty as hell in here! Nothing really helps. It's gross, but much of that is dead skin and shedding from toilet paper, paper towel, etc. I have dry skin, so yeah, it's bad

I have yet to find the Filtrete 1200 in stores-or online, that doesn't have the carbon impregnation. That substantially increases new flow restriction for a specific task-odor removal.
Those sub 1500 MPR ones just don't have enough surface area, if you want to run two changes a year-heating/cooling season: new filter when you kick on the A/C circa May 1, and then again for winter circa Nov 1.
Nice chart ( http://www.iallergy.com/filtrete-air-filter-comparison.php )
And if you are using the MERV system, I'd get at least a 10. (see page 7 http://www.emcorservicesnynj.com/news/FilterPerformanceByDN.pdf ) which means Filtrete 800 as the absolute minimum.

*I think Filtrete 1200 is especially for Sam's Club, just like Filtrete 1085 is for Lowes.

best one i used was fredrich c90 air cleaner. i tried few, this oner is the best, imo, but pricy, around 600. i had one in my office, i smoked cigs back than, after about two hours after i smoked a cigarette, you could not smell it. unfortunately i think they are discontinued. their new model, i have no idea how it works, but it lacks what made c90 great, the whole ionisation module. if you can find used one, grab it, but be carefull look carefully, remove entire ionisation unit, it come out easy, and inspect plates so they are not bent, and see if ionisation wires are not ripped, they are very delicate, and if riped entire unit is useless,