Air Purifier Report - Test Results of AllerAir 6000 with UV
Aller Air has ultraviolet light, prefilter, gas filter, and hepa filter
by David Barnaby and Bob Cobe
Editors note: This is the kind of testing
done by our staff. The AllerAir
6000 air purifier provides the highest filtration efficiency
and sterilization power in the AllerAir line of air purifier
products we offer.
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The
top of the air purifier unit can be removed by undoing 4 Philip
screws. They were rather tight but once removed the top came
off easily. There will normally be no need to remove this
cover except to service the fan or repair any electrical problem.
In order to access the filters on the unit all
work is done from the bottom of the unit.
The air purifier consists of a pre-filter, gas
filter, gas filter wrap, HEPA filter, and a UV light.
1. Pre-filter
Very easy access requires no screws to be undone. Simply turning
the air purifier upside down will allow you to pull the filter
out to vacuum and clean. It is a typical cotton and polyester
material filter that will only remove particles 5 microns
and larger. The filter is located inside of the gas filter
cylinder.
2. Gas Filter
To access this filter you will need to remove the bottom lid,
which consists of four Philip screws. They were very tight
and once removed you needed to tap the lid with a screwdriver
to loosen it. Once removed, removal of the gas filter was
very easy. The gas filter had a dust filter wrap around it
to keep in the dust that might occur from the carbon in the
filter. The top and bottom of the gas filter has two gaskets
that are very spongy and create a tight seal. We weighed the
filter and it weighed 20.5 pounds so this would meet the rated
18 pounds of carbon as stated on our website, but contradicts
what the manufacturer stated to us which was the 6000's now
come with 21 pounds of carbon. The air filter would probably
weigh around 24.5 pounds if there were 21 pounds of carbon
in it.
3. HEPA Filter
The HEPA filter is a cylinder that sits outside of the gas
filter cylinder. It was very easy to remove and it had a spongy
tight sealing gasket on the top and the bottom of the filter.
The filter material was a good quality paper material and
the pleating was done properly to increase the surface area
for air filtration.
4. UV Light
In order to access the UV light you need to remove a middle
shelf that sits above the filters which consists of three
Philip screws. They were easy to remove and the shelf lifted
right out. So, access to the UV light involved removing the
bottom plate and a middle plate. The UV light was a 10-watt
straight bulb and the way it was attached and the wiring appeared
to be of good quality installation. We were concerned about
the positioning of the UV light based on what a representative
from Allerair had told us. It had been explained to us that
the benefit of the UV light was to bathe the particles trapped
in the HEPA filter. However, the UV light was positioned above
the middle plate below the top section of the air cleaner
where the fan and outflow was. From our observation, we could
not see how the UV light could be exposed to any of the particulates
in the HEPA filter. The only application of the UV light was
to address those particles that had made it through the HEPA
filter and had moved up through the sides of the middle shelf
and into the area where the UV light was and from there it
moved to the top and back into the room. But the manufacturer's
representative had stated that the movement of the particulates
were at such a high speed as to not allow the UV light to
do anything to the DNA and RNA of the particulate. In order
for the UV light to break down the DNA and RNA of the particulate,
you need to be close enough to the light, the light needs
to be intense enough (dosage), and the exposure time needs
to be adequate. He stated that the exposure time would not
be close enough to provide any benefit. Therefore, the design
of this air purifier appears to contradict what he stated
to us.
We were not able to perform a particle count
test because our laser diode particle counter needs to be
recalibrated. We will perform the particle count test at a
later date.
On August 16, 2002, we performed a particle
count test with this air purifier and we came up with the
following results:
The particles going into the Allerair were 1,341,170.
We took 10 readings in the room and averaged them to get this
number.
LOW SPEED: We took
10 readings and they averaged out to 102,481. Our particle
count efficiency was 1- (102,481 divided by 1,341,170) = 92.36%
efficiency at 0.3 microns and larger in size.
HIGH SPEED: We took
10 readings and they averaged out to 96,890. Our particle
count efficiency was 1- (96,890 divided by 1,341,170) = 92.78%
efficiency at 0.3 microns and larger in size.
TURBO SPEED: We took
10 readings and they averaged out to 103,640. Our particle
count efficiency was 1- (103,640 divided by 1,341,170) = 92.27%
efficiency at 0.3 microns and larger in size.
Overall, this is an excellent result, but we
were disappointed it was not even higher results based on
the fact that we felt the HEPA filter was of a good quality
and the seal appeared very tight so we did not think there
would be any leakage whatsoever. However, this particle count
efficiency would still place it up there with the best of
the machines we have tested.
In order to give you some perspective we have
tested some nationally known best selling air purifiers not
sold on our site and their efficiency is between 15 and 40%.
