Coronet Blue—August 12, 2021
My neighbors like to burn wood. This would be fine with good lumber and a well maintained fireplace, but no. The idea was to save money and they were burning anything that would burn. The proof of this wisdom was the yellow walls in their house which were once white. So I became an air purifier expert of sorts. Not scientist, but also not a "trusted reviewer" with a website of Amazon links. There are two things an air purifier can do for you. (1) It can filter out small particles in the air. This is an easy and relatively inexpensive thing to do. Any unit with a HEPA filter wil do this. Get the biggest one you can, that does not have an ionization feature and you're done. I'd reccomend the Honeywell HPA 300. It moves a lot of air, can be placed near a wall (nothing goes in or out the back) and filters are reasonable. You'll be impressed at how much dust this thing traps. Item #2 is where BIG problems come in. Whereas a $99 purifier will catch dust, viruses, pollen etc., it will do almost nothing about noxious, poisonous fumes. Yes, smoke has particles of soot, ash, etc, but this dirt is carried along by VOCs, aka poisonous gases. Same as car exhaust, fresh paint, bug spray and so on. And I'm sorry to tell you, these gasses, like carbon monoxide and formaldehyde, sail right though a HEPA filter. The solution is charcoal filtration. Lots of it. Pounds of it. And for some reason, this is very expensive. A charcoal impregnated sheet or screen will work for about an hour during a fire before it becomes saturated and worthless. The IQ Air Multigas units have the charcoal needed to do the job. But besides the cost, they emit their own smell. This small is a lot nicer than smoke from a wildfire but it's still there and shouldn't be. The other popular high end units, Blue Air do not appear to have enough charcoal to do the job but I have not tried one so I can't say. The obscure Air Pura can do the job and is priced accordinly. And then there's the Austin Healthmate Pro. The Ausin is utterly no-frills but it has a monster charcoal filter and as far as I can tell, does not emit any odor of its own. Everything else about the Austin is disappointing; it's noisy, and the metal housing makes it even more so, the power cord is annoyingly short and with no place to store it, and if you want to mess with timers, Bluetooth connections or Alexa, you won't find any of that. But this is a real purifier; just a fan and a filter and most of the money has gone into that filter. I don't know if it's the high cost, or the assumption that people just want a dust filter, but even reputable sites like Consumer Reports and Wirecutter struggle with the cost/benefits of the few, really good air purifiers. But when your phone says "Air Quality Hazardous" what makes it hazardous is VOCs. The vast majority of air purifiers--certainly the affordable ones--will not lay a glove on these gasses. In summary: Buy a cheap air purifier and your eyes will burn from the smoke, but you won't have to dust as often. Read more
Alec D—September 13, 2017
Recently, I moved into a new apartment. I discovered after moving in that my neighbor is a heavy chain smoker and the smoke from his cigarettes was seeping into my bathroom and bedroom. I am a non smoker and found the smell hard to tolerate. I was also very anxious about the smell seeping into my clothes and mattress. The odor was making me cough and making my throat hurt. When I had friends over, they could smell it too. I bought this air purifier based on The Sweethome's recommendation as it apparently removes VOCs from the air better than other purifiers. The price is high but I justified the purchase as an emergency due to how anxious I was about the secondhand smoke exposure. Within a few hours of turning the purifier on, 90% of the cigarette smell was eliminated. I honestly have not smelled any secondhand smoke since using this purifier. I have kept the purifier on high during the day and have it in medium during the night. My apartment is about 800 sq feet and I feel that it does clean the air in the entire unit, even though there are a few different rooms. It sounds like a fan when it is running. I feel like it's a pleasant white noise overall, though the highest setting is a little too loud if you are trying to watch something nearby on a laptop. My only concern is how much the purifier will add to my electric bill. I have only had the purifier for a week, so I will try to follow up on that. To summarize: this filter has been so, so worth it for me. The price is high but if you are in a situation like I am, there is really no price you can put on your own health. Highly recommend. ***UPDATE***1 month use*** After one month of use, I haven't noticed any changes in my electric bill. I love this purifier! ***UPDATE***6 months use*** I still have this air purifier on all the time--on the high setting every day, and on the medium setting every night. It is still working great. I think that it has dipped a bit in performance since I first got it (maybe 5%). There is a significant difference in the air quality when the purifier is on high vs low. The low setting barely does anything, I never use it. I keep the purifier in my bedroom. Once, someone turned the purifier to low without my knowledge and I noticed a smoke smell in the other room--the smoke came from the purifier being on low and not high. Turning it back to high remedied this problem. For people in a similar situation to me, other interventions I suggest to reduce secondhand smoke exposure from your neighbors are to 1) never run the bathroom fan (it seems to suck in smoke from the neighboring unit) and 2) run your dryer as infrequently as possible as this will also suck in smoke from the neighboring unit. Our electric bill runs about $30-40 per month. Using the purifier does not seem to increase the bill at all. ***UPDATE***30 MONTHS OF USE*** Well after nearly 2.5 years I am moving out of my apartment and I am happy to say that the air purifier is still working well. We have not had to replace the filter during our time living here. The smoking neighbor still lives next door and is still smoking (I can smell it in the hallway) but it does not seem to enter our unit at all. For reference, our building is concrete (converted factory). I am planning to bring the air purifier to my next home just to help with dust and other odors in the air, but I am hoping to not run it on high every day any more. The noise has gotten more annoying over time but running it on anything other than the highest level does not seem to help as much. Another thing I wanted to update the review about is maintenance. Every week or so, I use the vacuum attachment to vacuum the sides of the machine. Dust usually builds up pretty quickly on the walls of the machine so clearing it frequently is important. Best of luck to anyone dealing with a challenging secondhand smoke situation. Read more
