Air Purifier Review

Measuring performance of air purifiers: A controversial process

Air purifier recommendations from ConsumerGuide.com appear to be based on factors such as appearance, features and price of replacement filters. These criteria might be more important if all home air cleaners worked equally to clear the air of allergens like pet dander, dust and smoke. However, according to organizations that test air purifiers thoroughly, performance varies greatly, so test results are especially important when it comes to identifying the best air purifiers. Be aware that while air-purifier manufacturers often tout testing data in their advertising, these studies may have been sponsored and paid for by the manufacturer.

ConsumerReports.org doesn't accept money, advertising or freebies from the air-purifier industry -- so its ratings are free from that kind of bias. But another reviewer, Ed Sherbenou at Air-Purifier-Power.com, says ConsumerReports.org's tests themselves are biased by design; they favor air purifiers that quickly clean the air of relatively large particles (dust and smoke), rather than pricier purifiers that take longer to work because they're filtering tinier particles like the ones that make up chemical fumes. ConsumerReports.org's tests are very similar to those run by the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, which Sherbenou (who started reviewing air purifiers because of his own multiple chemical sensitivities) also criticizes for the same reasons.

The IQAir HealthPro Plus (*Est. $900) is by far the most frequently recommended air purifier, earning nods from The Washington Post, Newsweek, ApartmentTherapy.com, AllergyBuyersClub.com, ConsumerGuide.com and Sherbenou's Air-Purifier-Power.com. IQAir says the HealthPro Plus uses several types of filters to capture chemical gases and particles (including bacteria and viruses) as small as 0.003 microns -- 100 times smaller than a regular high-efficiency particulate arresting (HEPA) filter. IQAir boasts a long list of hospitals and other health institutions that use its air purifiers.

However, at ConsumerReports.org, the IQAir HealthPro Plus gets lower scores than some under-$100, department-store air purifiers. ConsumerReports.org inserts measured amounts of dust and tobacco smoke into a sealed test chamber before turning on the air purifier being tested. Tests are run at both high and low speeds. Each purifier is turned on for the same amount of time giving an advantage to air purifiers that best reduce allergens in the entire room after a given time. This testing technique can penalize some air purifiers that don't process as much air on low speed as on high speed, like the IQAir HealthPro Plus. It also doesn't measure a filter's ability to reduce many common pollutants -- including chemical fumes, pollen, bacteria and viruses -- at all.

Despite their limitations, the tests at ConsumerReports.org and the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers are the best controlled tests available. When combined with reviews that consider an air purifier's ability to filter other pollutants, these sources provide a good foundation for determining the best air cleaners.

One review source we have featured in the past, Air-Purifiers-America.com, no longer appears in Our Sources. At first blush, Air-Purifiers-America.com seems like a good review source, and perhaps in the past it has been. But one of the principal individuals behind Air-Purifiers-America.com is also a stakeholder in Alen brand air purifiers, a detail that hampers the site's credibility. Several ConsumerSearch readers and people in the industry, including IQAir, have brought it to ConsumerSearch's attention that Peter Mann -- identified in publicly available documents as a principal of Web Stores America Inc., parent company of Air-Purifiers-America.com -- has a stake in Alen, which isn't disclosed on the Air-Purifiers-America.com review site. The Alen website's About Us page begins with the story of Mann struggling to relieve his infant son's asthma attacks, culminating in the formation of Alen Corp.

Reviews agree on the Ionic Breeze and Oreck XL

Publications that review air purifiers -- including ConsumerReports.org, Air-Purifier-Power.com and AchooAllergy.com -- do agree about the Ionic Breeze, which was sold by The Sharper Image. Negative publicity surrounding this electrostatic precipitator (meaning it electrically charges airborne particles) is believed to be at least in part to blame for The Sharper Image's demise.

When it was introduced, the Ionic Breeze was given a poor rating by ConsumerReports.org, which claimed that the Ionic Breeze removed very few particles from the air in their tests. The Sharper Image complained about the testing method used by ConsumerReports.org, so the organization tested the Ionic Breeze a second time (after an independent expert reviewed and validated the testing method) and still got the same result. ConsumerReports.org tested the Ionic Breeze Quadra a third time for its May 2005 update and yet again for another report. All of the Ionic Breeze air purifiers consistently achieved the same poor results.

Ozone was another problem. Early versions of the Ionic Breeze emitted more ozone than the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's 50 parts-per-billion limit for medical devices, ConsumerReports.org found. The FDA does not recognize home air cleaners as medical devices, so they aren't subject to that requirement, but it's a good measure for consumers. Later versions of the Ionic Breeze added an attachment that partially reduced the ozone to just under the FDA threshold. Ozone is a lung irritant that can aggravate asthma, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The Sharper Image lost a lawsuit it filed against ConsumerReports.org for what it called false and malicious claims, and investors mounted a class-action lawsuit against the company claiming fraud. In 2008, The Sharper Image filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and eventually closed all of its retail stores. But by 2009 a group of investors bought the brand, licensed The Sharper Image name to outside manufacturers and relaunched SharperImage.com. The site sells air purifiers from LightAir IonFlow and Blueair, but none with The Sharper Image name. However, at the time of this update we found Ionic Breeze models for sale at Office Depot, Overstock.com and Amazon.com, among other retailers.

Testing results are also consistently poor for another high-profile, heavily advertised home air cleaner brand: Oreck. Like the Ionic Breeze, Oreck's electrostatic precipitators did a poor job of removing allergens from the air in a leading test. Like the Ionic Breeze, Oreck air purifiers charge particles and in past tests have produced some ozone. Oreck now advertises a new lineup of air purifiers on its website, with the disclaimer that the ozone produced as a byproduct is "well under...; guidelines of 50 ppb (parts per billion)."