Air cleaners

Though dust is most noticeable where it settles and collects, the average house has about 3 million dust particles suspended in every cubic foot of air. For allergy sufferers, asthmatics, people with bronchial problems and those who are hyper-sensitive to airborne particulates, this can be a real problem. Air cleaners and filters are designed to remove dust from the air.

Visible dust is about 10 microns in diameter; respirable dust-the type that can lodge in your lungs-is more commonly about .3 micron. (A sharp pencil dot is about 200 microns in diameter.)

Air cleaners are made as self-contained, tabletop or room-size appliances that serve small areas or single rooms. Or they may be in the form of whole-house filters that attach onto a house's forced-air furnace. They work by mechanical filtration, electrical attraction or a combination of the two methods.

An electrostatic precipitating air cleaner draws particles in by fan and charges them with a series of high-voltage wires. A precipitating cell (a series of plates) that carries the opposite electrical charge attracts the particles as they pass by. They come as portable versions or whole-house models that connect to the cold-air return plenum on the furnace. They are quite effective, removing about 95% of bulk dirt and 85% of microscopic particles.

MORE ABOUT:
/ Tabletop air cleaners /
/ Ventilation /
/ Forced-air heating /
/ Central air conditioning units /

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