Holmes Desktop HEPA-Type 3 Speeds plus Optional Ionizer small Air Purifier HAP242B-U Black

I've owned this filter for 3 months now and feel that I can give a fair review. While this is not some super-filter that will eliminate odors or kill molds and bacteria, it's not supposed to be, nor should one expect it to be based on either its description or price. What it *does* is exactly what it is supposed to do: It filters dust and airborne particles from the air. I use it in a room 11x12 that is very dusty and in which we had lots of problems with sneezing and itchy eyes from whatever was circulating around in there. I have removed the front cover twice in three months to check on it. I have on one of those occasions rinsed the crepe filter, as it seemed quite dusty, but have not yet needed to change the HEPA filter. As far as sound is concerned, the low setting is barely audible, the medium setting is still unobtrusive, and the high setting makes what I actually find to be a very pleasant white noise. It helps me sleep better, actually, and helps drown out ambient noise. I am very noise-sensitive and I would not begin to call this unit "loud," and frankly find such remarks puzzling. My unit has gotten no dirtier than anything else in the room. I just dust it off when I dust the room and it looks great. I can't understand many of the complaints in other reviews, as I have simply not found those things to be true, or even if they are (it *is* audible and, well, yes, it attracts dust), they are simply the nature of this type of product. Of course it makes a sound and attracts dust. It's basically a box containing a fan. Even so, it makes more noise than any other fan, and gets no dustier than any other object in the room. If there's an air filter that works by silently releasing magical sprites into the air which seek out airborne particles and transport them to another dimension in with a sparkly wave of their wands, while riding tiny unicorns about and dusting the room for you, I haven't found it. This little unit does exactly what it promises, does it well, and does it for a paltry $3x.xx investment. Great purchase. Get one! *fairies and unicorns not included Read more

Works well for my intended use. I purchased this to mitigate fumes from soldering and it works great. On the high fan setting the smoke stream from the tip of the soldering iron is visibly pulled into the filter. The best use I've found is for eliminating the fumes from the toaster reflow oven. After a reflow cycle, I set the purifier atop the toaster oven and crack the oven door open. On high setting, the purifier is the perfect size for sucking up all the fumes coming from the oven. With the orange "smoke eliminator" filter, the air leaving the purifier contains no trace of fume or odor. Compared to running the oven without using the fan, after only a couple of reflow cycles, the room will begin to smell from the fumes released by the solder paste and if I work in this environment too long I start getting a headache. Using the purifier as described above, I can run the reflow oven all day without any issues. Caution: My reflow oven was modified internally with rock wool which insulates the oven and prevents the surfaces from getting hot. Placing this fan directly atop an unmodified toaster oven would most likely melt the housing or worse. Ionizer: The ionizer for electronics work MAY be an added benefit. Peering into the fan exhaust, only half of the air stream has ionizer probes. I don't have the equipment to test the effectiveness of the ionizer for ESD mitigation. Orange (smoke) vs Yellow (odor) filters: Holmes marketing isn't doing a great job explaining the difference between these two filters. From the given information, the two filters appear the same. Both include "HEPA Type" in the description. Both include "Baking Soda" in the description. Neither is advertised as "True HEPA". The Orange filter is more expensive than the yellow filter with no discernible justification given in the product page. From the front, both filters appear to be the same. However, physically looking at the filters, the difference becomes apparent when looking at the exhaust side of the filter and when physically handling the filters. The Orange filter includes a standard pleated style filter, whereas the Yellow filter does not. The Yellow filter appears to be a pure carbon and baking soda filter. The Orange filter has a carbon and baking soda layer in front of a pleated filter. The yellow filter may work better at removing odors as it may include more carbon and baking soda. However, the orange filter may work better at removing smaller particles and allergens due to the pleated filter. For my purposes, I'm not sure which is more effective for removing toxic fumes from soldering. So far, I've only used the Orange filter and haven't yet had to open the yellow filter. The orange filter has been proven to work so far, and since I only use the purifier when needed, I haven't yet had to replace the filter. Overall, I think this purifier is too small to purify an entire room. However, for work bench purposes it works great. Use a proper whole room purifier for 24/7 purification and use this when trying to purify a small work area. Read more

Hello. I so far have this for 5 years. Still doing a great job. Was wondering if I could take apart to clean inside. Has anyone done this before? Thanks. Read more