Air Purifiers Reviews

((added later: I'd like to LOWER my star rating to 2 stars, it doesnt work any more. Fan lasted 3 mos, now it doesnt turn on. You think I have time to send this back in the mail? I dont. into the garbage it goes...))

I looked for just regular ultrasonic humidifiers and couldnt find hardly any that just held alot of water, had a directional spout and the mist came out on top so it didnt get the carpet wet, was quiet and that's it... dont need filters or anti-bacterial whatever that will just break, i know how to wash a piece of plastic when its dirty. Anyway, this model is all those things, I would have said I was 100% satisfied with it. AND I bought it from the manufacturer after amazon screwed up my order and tried to charge me a ton for shipping.
BUT, i cant give it 5 stars because when the thing runs out of water, an alarm goes of, what the heck is that for? Just turn off if you're so worried. It woke me up and scared me half to death. Today it woke up my twins and scared them, its like a siren this thing. I'm going to take some pliars to it and 'fix' it myself. Other than that, works like a charm. BIG tank... good.

CHANGE: fan broke after 2 mos. its trash now, going in the garbage.

Wow,
Works great. Use purified water to reduce mineral deposition.
I love this humidifier.

Quiet, light, does the job. I've had this for a year now and I've nothing bad to say about it.

Although I don't have chemical sensitivity problem, I am very sensitive to certain smells. Certain food like becon smell drives me crazy to the point I can't sleep. I've tried everything. I had five cans of air fresheners around the 928 sq.ft. apartment on top of the two heated scent oils. I had two TrueAir units in the kitchen that I ran 24/7. These just didn't work for me. After an exhausive research on air cleaners and filtrations, I finally gritted my teeth and bought this expensive IQAir because it had 12 lbs of activated carbon filter.

As soon as we got it, We tested the thing out right away by cooking spicy Italian suasage for dinner. We dragged the unit into the kitchen and let it run at the highest fan speed for a few hours. By the time we went to bed, the smell was gone. It used to take a few days with two TrueAirs to get rid of the smells. We dragged the thing back to the bedroom and let it run at the lowest setting the whole night to test out the HEPA pre-filter. The next morning my husband woke up without a stuffy nose.

PROs
- It works exactly as advertised.

- It kills odors completely. If you have a very sensitive nose, you'll know what it means.

- HEPA pre-filter. Allergy anyone?

- The fan is very quiet. The lowest two settings is hardly noticable. Even at the highest setting, the fan hums rather than blasts.

- It is programmable. We can set it to run a few hours before we get home from work. That helps prolong the filter life. You can program the dust load, fine dust load, and gas load and it automatically calculate the filters' lives for you. So, if you live in a less dusty area, your filters last longer. It'll tell you exactly when to change the filters.

- It is a solid machine. No flimsy parts.

- It covers 900 sq.ft. One unit is enough to cover an entire apartment.

CONs
- The caster wheels work fine on a hard surface floor. They don't move effectively on carpetted floor. I found it easier to half lift, half drag the unit between the kitchen and the bedroom. Because the heavy carbon filters are on the top part of the unit, this thing is top-heavy. When you drag it and the wheels got stuck, it tends to tip over.

An update on the caster wheels: One of the wheels finally broke off from being dragged while it got stuck in the carpet. I emailed the customer support and a set of replacement wheels arrived in a week. I only needed one, but they sent me a set of 4 free of charge.

- The assembly instruction sucks. It doesn't show you how to put the carbon filters together. You pretty much have to guess what goes where. Don't wear light clothes when you assemble the carbon filters. I got carbon dust all over me. Since the carbon powder is very fine, some of it got loose during shipping. Imagine a bag of flour on the supermarket shelf. Except it's black.

NOTEs
- When you unpack the carbon filters, be sure to wipe them really good with damp paper towel. Do not use a cloth towel unless you plan to throw the towel away. Of course, the instruction doesn't tell you this. (It doesn't tell you anything, actually.) I figured that out on the second filter.

- Neither one of us has chemical sensitivity so we can't test that feature. However, I notice that the Clorox smell doesn't linger on for half a day the day I do laundry like it did before.