I’ve been running germ guardians in all three bedrooms, the living room, dining room(which kids use for crafting and Lego mostly) and finished basement pretty much 24/7 since we bought our house 11years ago. I vacuum the prefilters every week or so and change the filters probably every 3 months, sometimes longer if they look clean but never more than 6months. (We also use a merv13 in our HVAC system)
We ran 2 in our tiny two bedroom apartment for years before that.
I’m still in the process of figuring out whether I officially have MCAS. (Still waiting on test results.)
How did I spend 10+ years not realizing that it’s not ‘normal’ to need air purifiers running in one’s house 24/7? 🤦🏻♀️
Both. We have 6 of the tall ones and my youngest daughter has the short rectangular one with the kids projecting light thingy on top in her room. I have a shark vacuum with HEPA filter so I just vacuum off the plastic grills and then remove that and gently go over the black prefilter with the brush attachment.
The little one we have is AC4150BLCA and the big ones are AC4825DLX or I think a couple are a very slightly different older version but they’re almost identical. I believe we replaced two of the oldest ones around a year ago after almost 10 years of continuous use eventually wore out the motors and made them start getting noisy.
I have a GermGuardian setup to blow right after my boxes. It’s the ~tabletop-sized one (that requires E filters). I have it on top of a low-height wooden box for shoe storage. So it’s ~18-28” above the ground. That seems to do wonders
I also have a PetFusion privacy gate that blocks the area around cat boxes. It’s made of wood frames and semi-opaque plastic in the middle of the 3 panels.
It’s maybe 3-4’ high. I think it does a good job of keeping in the litter and the smells
The air purifier blows over cat boxes and is kind of corralled in the litter area, thanks to the walls and this cat privacy screen
With that in mind a germ guardian tower is probably the most affordable good option. Whatever you buy should have UVC light built in to degrade mycotoxins, “plasmawave” or “bipolar ionizer” is also an acceptable alternative just make sure it’s California CARB certified. Stay away from classic ionizer/ozone
I do. I have 3 school aged kids aka plague carriers. We have Germ Guardian UV-C plus HEPA filters in each room. It greatly cuts down on kids reinfecting each other and us parents. They also collect cat hair pretty well.
The Germ Guardians were $98 each and 4pack of replacement filters is $30. Saving one doctor visit for the 3 kids covers buying a unit.
6 years in use without any problems.
Germ guardian HEPA from Costco. There is a newer model for under $200. It is for up to 1900 square feet. We live in an area that is affected by wildfires every few years - this is what we bought it for. I now only run it when needed: smoke in environment, smoke from cooking, smells from cooking, if one family member is sick I put it in their room to prevent spread. Used it when my son got COVID - just left it running in his room. Nobody else got sick.
It clears all odors and smoke very quickly, it has a PPM reading and you can watch it as it clears the air. It is very helpful in open plan kitchen/dining/living. It is nice to have odors cleared quickly.
We have no pets and only one carpet, the filter still clears the air quickly, we have not change it. This may not be the case in homes with more dust production.
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.
HindsightisUnclear
