Austin Air - Healthmate Plus

Austin air purifier. Filter change every 5 years. Recommended by my doctor. It's still working after 19 years.

I use Austin Air. I did a lot of research and went with the Healthmate Plus. (I have the full size for my main floor and a junior one for each bedroom.) It’s got two kinds of filters: medical grade HEPA and it’s got like 15lbs of carbon… the most carbon of any filter on the market. I wanted something with a good carbon filter because that’s what traps VOCs. (If you’ve painted or done work on your house, have new furniture, use your fireplace, or have neighbors that have a ton of outdoor fires like I do, or are affected by wildfires, you want more than HEPA.) It also is made of steel and powder coated for coloring, so no plastics and paints to off-gas and make more VOCs. And made in the US. They’re not cheap, but totally worth the money. The filter can be good up to 5 years, depending on how much it’s filtering. Cheaper brands usually have to have frequent filter changes, which adds up quickly. I’d rather pay the money up front for a good machine and not have to worry about it. Oh and they don’t produce ozone, which some others do. Definitely check to make sure whatever you get doesn’t use electronic or ionizing technology to filter. Edit to add… I reread your post again after I commented. How I know it works? It can last up to five years in normal conditions… Mine saturated in about 9-12 months. I do not fault the air purifier at all, that just tells me it did its job. We had just moved into an older house that had some updating, and new furniture, and our neighbors light a lot of fires. This was also during the Canada fires when it was coming down the US coast and making our air quality over 400. It was kind of a bummer to buy a new filter for it (they give discounts if you need to get one before 5 years) but it was nice knowing it did its job and kept us from all of those toxins.

😂 I totally understand! I did the same thing. I spent so much time looking and kept going back to Austin. I ended up ordering the main one directly from them. At the time they had a discount code and I think I got $100 off (Healthmate Plus is $800, I think.), but not sure how often they do sales. When I got the juniors I did some shopping around because they didn’t have a code then, ended up finding a site called Natural Linens that is a distributor and was having a 20% off site sale, so I got them for $488, originally $610.

I have the Austin Air Healthmate plus amd I will swear by it. Definitely one of the (very) expensive options, but they guarantee the filter for 5 years. Plus it moves a massive amount of air!

Austin Air. Spendy, but the filters last five years and have more active charcoal than any other out there. The company is an offshoot of Smokeeaterz, the companh that builds filters for cigar bars. Great warranty. Good customer service. Dead simple machine. No lights. Has a fan speed control and that is it.

I have a couple of models: Immunity Machine, Healthmate Plus, bedroom machine. There have been some reviews stating that Austins are slower at clearing a room of particulates. My main concern is VOCs and since I run 3-4 filters in each room that isn't a concern for me. Am now testing the immunity machine. Seems to do a much better job with VOCs, although final results will take a while. What is your concern with IQAair?

I have 2 Austin Air HEGA units and they’re fantastic. I bought the first one in 2008 and it’s still running at this very moment. I generally find that filtration media needs to be replaced every year or so (more like 16 months in our case). When you receive a replacement filter, you can register it with their website. If it needs to be replaced in less than one year, they will give you a pro-rated refund. I had to replace mine ater 4 months one year because we enclosed one of our old porches to add a bedroom and there was a lot of extra dust and VOCs, and it was cool to get that refund!

We have two health mate, a junior and I just bought a plus. Bedroom machine was new to me when I looked at the website. Btw I’ve brought the machines and filters through a reseller and it’s much cheaper - https://www.airpurifiersandcleaners.com I priced it in a few of them and this was least expensive.

I bought the plus filters for my existing machines. I like that you can swap the filter in any of the machines. I sound like I’m shilling for them, it’s just a buy one cry once kind of thing and I like that.

Austin is a waste of money sadly. I bought it to reduce VOCs, however according to my sensor it loses effectiveness in under a month, then you are on the hook for a new $300 filter. I continued to use my Healthmate Plus for about 8 months as just a HEPA filter and it started to smell like vinegar. Didn’t even get a year out of it as a normal filter either. A replacement filter lasted a similar amount of time for VOC effectiveness. The unit itself is quite low quality and expensive for what you get, once you take it apart to do the filter change. Talk about zero investment in improving your product.

In terms of “is the Austin enough”, the iqair fan is 275cfm vs 250 for the Austin, so in terms of volume of air through the filter it’s not that different. As particle filters these are terrible value by the way. Both are stupid loud on high, like you need to yell loud if you are near it, so you likely won’t run them at that speed anyway. Probably better results with 2 Austin’s over 1 iqair. That’s just a guess though. If I was you I would buy one Austin, use your monitor to see if it helps. Get a second only if you need it. But ymmv.

Years ago I moved into a new construction apartment and the cabinets gave off a resin smell that I assumed contained formaldehyde. I was having terrible allergy symptoms that I suspected was related to this. I bought an Austin air healthmate plus and was shocked at how much it helped. I’ve had several different HEPA purifiers over the years, and experienced with others with high amounts of activated carbon but Austin is by far the best. Can’t say that it’s worth the cost for everyone, but in my situation it really was.