I have two Coway Airmegas (300 and 400) and one Austin Air Bedroom Machine. They've all been running for 24 hours a day for over 5 years and have held up great. They are all easy to move around. The Coways are light and the Austin Air is heavier but has wheels.
If you don't want to clean the outer filter at least monthly, don't get a Coway. If you can't deal with something that's pretty loud on the highest setting, don't get an Austin Air.
I have two of those for bedrooms and the bigger airmega 300 for kitchen/dining/living area. They've been working great for me (I get impacted by wildfires and my neighbors fireplaces).
Hey, you and I are in the same boat. I had a baby boy at 31 weeks, now almost 5 month adjusted, and I went down the air quality rabbit hole hard. I want to do whatever I can to keep him healthy and developing normally.
He sleeps with us in our room right now. I have a clean air kits luggable xl pc fan cr box and a IQair Health Pro Plus running on setting 2. Both run 24/7. This gives me a lot of air changes per hour and some gas filtration, while staying below 50 decibels.
In the rest of the house, I have more luggable xls, smart air blast, iqair gc and GCX, Coway 400 and 300, and an Alen 25i.
I think it’s important to get a standalone air quality monitor like the air gradient one or purple air zen.
I run the hvac blower fan 24/7 to circulate air through the house.
I also open windows every morning and bring in fresh air to keep CO2 low.
I don’t know what your budget is, but you can make your own cr boxes for really cheap and then throw a few nice hepa air purifiers on top.
I bought all the expensive units used (iqair, Coway, smart air) and saved a ton of money. Just gave them a good cleaning and new filters.
Another important thing is to always run your kitchen hood vent when cooking
I’ve been keeping my house between 68-72 degrees Fahrenheit so that he sleeps his best and relative humidity between 45-55%. I have a Midea Cube dehumidifier I run when it’s really humid out and humidity in the house gets above 60%.
I also vaccum and mop the floors all the time now. We have an old dog that sheds a lot and the floors get covered in hair if I don’t stay on top of it.
I kindof rambled but that’s just been what I have been doing and what purifiers I bought to give you some ideas and things to look into.
I just got an Alen Air 25i for my little office and it’s been a really great unit for the last few weeks. Alen sells bundle “whole house” solutions that might work for you.
For me, I put a smart air blast in my living room, a iqair GCX in my kitchen, iqair gc in my dining room/front foyer, Alen 25i in the office, Coway Air Mega 300 and 400s in our spare bedrooms, an iq air health pro plus in the master bedroom, and 4 clean air luggable cr boxes spread out throughout the house. Do I have an addiction to buying air purifiers? Yes. Very weird addiction. But all were bought off Facebook marketplace and were pennies on the dollar compared to new. Just had to give them a good wipe down and put in a new filter.
I became a Coway fanboy after last year's fires. I have 3 of them at home and 2 at work, bought one for my parents & love them all.
The cylindrical Airmega 100 model is good for small bedrooms & offices. The Airmega AP-1512 "Mighty" is larger & is good for living rooms or large bedrooms. The big square Airmega 300 has twice the amount of filters as the Mighty, and can cover a larger space, like a great room or office lunch room. All three models have carbon & HEPA filters.
The area they claim to clean is always extremely exaggerated. The rule of thumb is you want the floor area divided by .66 to equal the CFM, or for the CFM to be higher than that. The maximum CFM for that purifier is 229 CFM. Therefore the largest area for 1 purifier (with an open area, walls greatly decrease this) would be 151 square feet. I’d personally get 4. One for the Kitchen, one for the living room, one for the bed room, and one for the bathroom could use a significantly smaller air purifier for the bathroom
Options I would consider
A larger better air purifier if you want only one for the kitchen and the living room. I’d say you’d need at least 300 minimum CFM to deal with any walls. The lowest CFM I’d get for that space would be the coway 300, but I’d prefer the 400 for that space
The one you want for the bedroom
A smaller one like like the d360 is a little cheaper and… also if you didn’t know the one you want there is an ionizer that turns on every single time. The d360 does not have that
I’ll break down the knowledge I have to maybe help you make a decision.
Most air purifiers are good for either smells, OR dander. You’ll need a ton of activated charcoal to deal with VOC’s.
UV lights won’t do much when there’s a HEPA filter already, that’s catching what the UV light would ‘clean’.
Smell fresh and clean you need activated charcoal. If you want minimal maintenance you’ll need a TON of it
If budget is truly not an issue what so ever, It all depends on the house layout. I would get separate air purifier and air scrubber for the carbon.
My recommendation for VOC’s: Amaircare Airwash MultiPro Air Scrubber Heavy VOC Focus 25 lbs Carbon. It has 25 pounds of carbon that will last a long time
My recommendation for an air purifier for dander would be the Coway pro X, or any of their air mega Series if you want multiple smaller ones instead. I would not get the round ones, as if you want the hepa filters to actually last a year, you have 0 choice besides vacuuming/washing a pre filter and the round ones don’t have a separate pre filter. The 1512, 300, and 400 are all also great
Top Air Purifiers on Reddit
1
Coway
Airmega AP-1512HH Mighty
87% positive of 126 users
Durable, effective for allergens/odors, but loud on high.
andraconduh
