Fresh Air by EcoQuest

Many people do not understand what ozone is, therefore they are afraid of it and say all manner of inaccurate statements about it. The reason air purifiers and especially the Ecoquest air purifiers work so… well is that they are modeled after nature itself. Ozone is created in nature all the time, especially around moving water, in the mountains and after thunderstorms, to clean the air, but in conjuction with water it does more. It is also found wherever there is pollution...and there is a reason for that. There are several things ozone was designed to do. To name two: clean/purify the air of pollutants and kill mold. A molecule of ozone is O3 while oxygen is O2 and water is H2O. Here's a picture that might help in understanding this entire process and the bad rap ozone gets from some. If there is a fire, then the firemen are alerted and they go to the fire to fight it and put it out. Now, if we started saying that firemen cause fires, because they are always there whenever there is a fire, that would be silly. It's the same way with ozone. Calling ozone a pollutant or saying it is the cause of pollution is not scientifically accurate. Ozone forms when there are pollutants in the air, therefore, the more pollutants there are, the more ozone there is. The O3 actually has one atom of the three that is unstable. This is why it can clean pollutants out of the air. This unstable atom gets attracted to the pollutant atoms and puff!...it then oxidizes (burns up.)Then you have a clean oxygen molecule, O2, because the third one is gone! It continues on with this process until all the air is cleaned. This is especially helpful after a forrest fire, so again, that is why these machines work so well in rapidly getting rid of smoke damage even in wood in a home. It is beautiful in its simplicity. Now, let's deal with the toxicity of ozone...and asthma sufferers (I have asthma and I love what the air purifiers do in my home.) Would you agree that water is good for us? What if we were in the middle of the ocean and couldn't swim? Sometimes in some situations too much of a good thing is not so good! But it does not make the actual item the bad guy...it is how one uses it. Anti-biotics are good for us, but getting too much has now created the very thing we were trying to stop. I am sure you can think of many such situations...fire is good, too much and used wrongly and it can mame and kill, etc. When one goes hiking in the mountains, often it is said that the "mountain-fresh air" is just great. There is more ozone there. Even at its highest setting, less ozone is created in these machines than what has been determined to be an irritant. It is only a matter of enclosure. When I use my purifier on the highest output of ozone to "sanitize" a room or my bedding, I shut the door and let it do its thing. When I open the door, I can smell a lot of ozone. All one has to do, is then turn the purifier down or off, and open the door a few minutes! It dissapates almost immediately. We often have people enter our home and remark at how fresh it smells (and I have three cats.) But...there are a few (very few in our experience) who have not liked the way our home smells...my daughter, for one. She just does not like it. She says it smells like bleach or dirty socks! So, we turn the purifier down. For us, we are so used to it, we do not even smell it anymore unless we have been gone for awhile...and then we only smell it a few seconds upon entering our home. (And that is not because our sense of smell is being destroyed! It is a natural thing that one gets used to ones own smells if one is around them long enough...hence, we often get offended by another or another one's environmental odors while they are not...much, much evidence and examples can be used here...like I said, we smell it again if we have not been around it for while.) Now as to mold and how the ozone works on it. The unstable atom of the O3 breaks off as it is attracted to the moisture (H20) in the mold. It attaches itself to the H2O making it H2O2. And guess what H2O2 is? It is hydrogen peroxide, and that kills mold! Another beautiful creation in nature for our benefit...and yet, when man discovers these things, we then can harness the discoveries to make them work for us in many, many other ways. Hence, a wonderful air purifier. There is certainly not time, nor space, nor most likely interest to cover these subjects in their scientific entirety, but at least this general overview can address some of the inaccurate rumors touted today. The bottom line is that anything that can be good for us, if abused, misued, etc, can also be not so good. It is not good or bad in itself, it is how it is utilized.

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Ozone increases the risk of premature death. See the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies 2006 report. Ozone also deadens the sense of smell. The reduction of odors is partly due to this… masking effect, and not to the removal of odor-causing chemicals. Claims of dust removal or breakdown with "ions" are greatly exaggerated. At best the dust settles on your furniture, and is released back in the air when you sit on it or disturb it.

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The unit works well eliminating dust and odor. Most of my friends who have this machine have the same complaint that I do - Maintenance and new parts. They tell you that you never need to buy another… filter. This is true, but the lamp ($17) always needs replacing (this is the 3rd one in 18 months) and friends of mine have complained that they have needed to replace the plate many times. Since you cannot buy parts at your local store, you need to get them online and wait while your machine is out of commission. You need to clean the machine at least once a month. It is not like other machines that just snap open. You need to unscrew the back panel, front panel and inside panel. It is amazing how dusty the inside gets! The filters are easy to wash down. Like anything else, when it is working it is great.

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