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A few weeks ago, the “replace filter” light lit up on the old Bionaire UA1560 air cleaner I’ve had for a few years. We’ve gone through a couple filter changes before and noted that the thing is fundamentally a HEPA filter attached to a 50-cent fan; most of the cost is filter replacement. This time, I wanted to use the opportunity to get a better air cleaner, especially since we’re expanding the apartment, and the UA1560 is meant more for a 1-BR or studio than a larger space.

There was some thought about the Ionic Breeze from Sharper Image. One of its selling points is the lack of filters: dust and dirt collect on electrostatically charged fins, and all you have to do is wash off the fins every once in a while. This is fine in principle, as HVAC forced air systems use similar techniques to clean the air. Unfortunately, testing labs not sponsored by Sharper Image have found that the Ionic Breeze works about as well as your TV in clearing dust from the room. That the Sharper Image chose to use lawsuits to address the matter didn’t sit well with me.

Another filterless cleaner is the heavily advertised Venta AirWasher, which seems to have adspace in every copy of the New York Times I look at. Zabar’s carries it in the housewares section, so I’ve seen the actual model a few times. The AirWasher claims to be a 2-in-1 device, both a humidifier and air cleaner, where water is used as the filtering agent for the air. Something about circulating air through hamster-wheel-like contraptions and the wet particles dropping into some collection basin. The problem is that, unlike HEPA air cleaners, there’s no number associated with the AirWasher about how effectively it cleans the air: nothing about cubic feet of air processed, nothing about minimum particle size, and so on. Presumably, it makes a decent cold water humidifier, but may not be a particularly good air cleaner. People who claim to be helped by the Venta probably would have done just as well with a good humidifier in the room, and maybe a small HEPA cleaner.

The Consumer Reports review that slammed the Ionic Breeze did recommend an air cleaner, the Friedrich C90A. This actually isn’t a HEPA cleaner, either, but works similarly to the Ionic Breeze by trapping particles on electrostatically charged fins. The main difference is that the Friedrich has a big fan to actually move air through the fins, as opposed to relying on, I suppose, magic (granted, electrostatic effects can move air in a meaningful way, but not in anything built for home use; anyway, moving air produces noise, and the Ionic Breeze is silent). The Friedrich also has a CADR rating (a really high one in fact: my old Bionaire has barely one third of the rating), so someone other than Friedrich has looked to see if the thing does what it claims to do. We picked up a Friedrich at Len Harris, Inc. in Queens yesterday. (An added bonus with going to Len Harris: we looked at stackable washer-dryers there, since we have to decide in the next few weeks on what to get. The Frigidaire looks good, and is much less expensive at Len Harris than I’ve seen elsewhere. The salesman noted that other stackables, especially the European models, are both smaller and more expensive than the Frigidaire, since, like electronics, it can be costly to make things tiny. Since we have room, we’re going for the larger capacity washer/dryers, and saving money in the process.)

The Friedrich is big and ugly — it looks like the designers spent less than five minutes trying to make it look nice. The Ionic Breeze looks sleek and sexy, and it’s advertised in a something-for-nothing manner, claiming to be simulatenously silent and maintenance-free, yet effective. We have the engineering/marketing dichotomy at work here, with the engineers winning out at Friedrich, and marketing winning at the Sharper Image. Possibly, the company name says it all.

Update: the Consumer Reports review of all these air cleaners I mentioned was for October, 2003. No link, since I don’t have a subscription to CR.

Update 04/2005: This press release from CR coincides with the new beat-down of the Ionic Breeze administered by Consumer Reports in the May 2005 issue. There are pointers to CADR numbers and mentions the Friedrich C-90A as top-rated.

Posted on Tuesday, February 24th, 2004 at 7:22 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.