Different air purifiers are designed differently to match specific needs. So prior to shopping, you must know what your specific needs are and what kind of air purification technology is best to serve your needs.
Air Purifier Brands - Which One is The Best ?
In the air purifier world, there are foure tiers of home air purifiers, and it's better to know them before you buy air purifier.
The first tier contains the creme de la creme brands of air purifiers. These air purifiers really work to clean the air and customers have reported the good effects of having such air purifiers in their homes. These are the air purifiers you want if you are a severe allergy sufferer, have problem with lung, are immune-compromised or have multiple chemical sensitivities. You would also need these if you want to get rid of cigar smoke and pet odor.
Now, how do you know that an air purifier is considered premium ?
Usually you can tell that they are premium from the brand. These air cleaners are mostly made by manufacturers which are dedicated to manufacturing air filters or air purifiers only, for instance: IQAir, Blueair, Austin Air, AllerAir, Airgle, Clarifier, Plasmawave, and RabbitAir, although recently, some air purifiers built by Asian home appliance manufacturers have, joined this rank, for example: Sharp air purifiers.
In addition, a premium home air cleaner is usually more expensive, with price ranging from $450- over $1000. But this may be offset by their ability to purify larger rooms. For instance, IQAir brand, at around $800 is capable on cleaning up 900 sq ft room, whereas Austin Air, the no-frill premium air purifier, at around $500 is capable to clean a 625 sq. feet room.
The second tier is occupied by good-enough air purifiers. These air purifiers work pretty well, but not at a high efficiency as the first tiers ones. They also often lack of convenient features. For instance, some of air purifiers in this tier, while working pretty well, are very noisy. Nevertheless, these air cleaners are good enough for all-around-cleaning and are suitable for somebody with mild problems, such as mild allergy symptoms.
We would not recommmend these for somebody with severe allergy, asthma, immune-compromise problem, and multiple chemical sensitivities since these people need better air purifier to alleviate their symptoms. We also don't recommend this for people who want to buy air purifier specifically for curbing cigar smoke and odor, since usually, the amount of carbon (gas absorbant) is not sufficient to filter out these gases.
So how do you know that an air purifier belongs to this tier ? Usually, this tier is occupied by air purifiers put out by home appliance's manufacturers from Asia and the West, such as Honeywell, Aprilaire, Hamilton Beach, and so forth, with the cost per-unit hovering around $100-300.
They are also usually designed for smaller rooms, with the area ranging from 100-250 sq. feet.
Next on the rank is the third-tier air purifiers, which at most can only do general air cleaning. These air purifiers have an even less efficiency than the ones at the second tiers and you
should not buy this unless you only want air purifiers for all around cleaning. They are also pretty cheap and most are manufactured by home appliance's manufacturers.
Lastly, there is the fourth tier air cleaners which either do not work or cause harm by emission of ozone. The companies which put out these machines spend more money on marketing than on technological research, and these purifiers are usually marketed either via MLM (multi-level marketing) or paid TV programming. As a result, these air purifiers are popular among customers, especially for the ones who are interested in all-around cleaning.
Basically, you should be worried if the marketing campaigns involve these words: filterless, ionizer, ozone generator, maintenance-free, quiet and fresh odor. For more information on these types of air purifier, read our articles on how air purifiers work to see how a filterless/ionic air purifier produce ozone as a by-product. In addition, you may also want to read on how owning a home ozone generator for home air purification is not a good idea.
To Sum Up - Air Purifier Buying Guide
In brief, these are the tips to buy air purifier:
- Learn whether air purifiers really work and beneficial your situation. If you need to buy air purifier, then define what your needs are.
Read our article on how to choose the best indoor air purifiers according to your needs. .
- Know how to evaluate and choose air purifier so you can apply these criteria when you buy air purifier. It's even better if you know about different kinds of home air purifier system or technology so you won't easily be scammed by an advertisement.
- Avoid air purifier scams by considering to buy air purifier built only by reputable (first tier) air purifier manufacturers if you have serious issues which need to be solved. At the very least, get the second-tier air purifier, especially if you need an air cleaner for all-around cleaning or to solve mild problems. Never buy the fourth tier brands. This means, avoid MLM-marketed brands as well as the ones marketed via paid programming and mini sales sites.
- Understand that usually high quality air purifiers are carried by either allergy stores or air purifier-dedicated stores online or offline. Amazon.com also carries those air purifiers via its third-party vendors which are actually allergy stores. Therefore, if you are aiming for a first-tier or premium air purifiers and want to buy air purifier locally, then your best bet is to visit your local allergy store.
- Before buying an air purifier, read air purifier reviews such as the one in this site). There are also other organizations which test air purifiers and give ratings. Two of the most famous ones are: Customer Report Magazine and AHAM. In addition, highly-selective air purifier or allergy stores also subject air purifiers to their in-house test to ensure they only carry the ones which really work. Read about air purifier ratings here so you understand different test and rating systems of these sites.
- Don't forget to also read customer-generated reviews in sites like www.amazon.com, www.ripoffreport.com and www.epinion.com. These sites are particularly useful because they publish both positive and negative reviews.
- Make sure you stay on budget by knowing how to get discounted air purifiers and working out the ownership as well as maintenance cost prior to buying an air purifier. Read our article on air purifier cost to help you in this area.
- Once you know which brand to get, you need to check on vendor's reputation before buying an air purifier online or off line (locally). Better Business Bureau website is of course your first stop to check on complaints. You can also look at possible complaints in: www.ripoffreport.com, www.bizrate.com , www.pricegrabber.com and www.epinions.com. The safest way so far to buy such an expensive item via internet is to
buy it via third-party, for instance Ebay and Amazon. Why ? Because they have ratings of individual store, so you can always look at the ratings and decide whether you are comfortable in dealing with a particular store.
Secondly, do not forget to check for the store's return policy. Some customers have complained that sometimes the vendors ship returned or opened items, or mislead their product listing in an attempt to move old/discontinue products. So, knowing the return policy is crucial here. Having said that,
it is important to know that may be all air purifier vendors ask the manufacturer to dropship directly to the customers, so in this case, the vendors might not have a control on how the manufacturers actually ship the item. Anyway,
one should take extra caution when buying air purifiers online.
From tips on how to buy air purifier page to Homepage.
