We have a 2 story house and on the main floor we’ve been through 3 high priced super duper fancy ones since 2020. They stop running, start making noise, we can’t find filters, it’s always something. Upstairs we have an inexpensive old fashioned black box (Allergen Plus) from Honeywell that just won’t quit. Get the ugly one from Honeywell.
Sufferer of lots of allergies, including dust mites here! My allergy dr recommended a few things: mission allergy brand pillow encasements (this brand only- apparently other ones don’t work as well) https://www.missionallergy.com/product/barrier-2-pillow-encasings; wash your sheets, blankets, mattress covers in HOT water; use an air purifier. We’ve used Honeywell Allergen Plus HEPA air purifier for years now and it helps a ton. It’s not the quietest, but it’s a nice white noise while we all sleep.
Mine is a Honeywell. Because I know I'll be able to continue to get filters (even if I do buy off brand ones, bc theirs are SO expensive). Standard filters is the way. The A+ prefilter is better than the standard softer A style, but both are good at catching cat hair (I vacuum it off regularly)
Honeywell makes standard styles/sizes (mine uses two R filters) and other companies use the same system so it's easy. You can also search by model number (ex hpa 200)
These are what I bought last time: https://ebay.io/m/JRqZjg
For reasonable VOC removal there are only 4 players I know in the market which offer products which have the minimum 10 pounds of sorbent media: Airpura, Allerair, Austin, IQAir.
Wildfires product a huge mix of chemicals - from the vegetation, contents of burned buildings, etc. There is no consumer solution that removes all VOCs. Each type of media is better at some chemicals, not so good or not effective at all with others. For the same reason there is no sensor that I know that will give you the level of all VOCs.
These machines and filters tend to be expensive. I just upgraded my Austin units with Immunity Machine filters which cost \~$700 each. We were spared wildfire smoke this season but with AQI numbers breaking 100 I was able to keep my indoor values close to 0.
I use Austin and IQAir VOC machines along with Honeywell and Whirlpool HEPA units, 3 filters per room.
Top Air Purifiers on Reddit
1
Coway
Airmega AP-1512HH Mighty
87% positive of 128 users
Durable, effective for allergens/odors, but loud on high.
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