This is the outdoor air I have at my home where I currently live. I’m just a bit more inland
A reader wrote to me this week with some questions about purchasing an EnviroKlenz Mobile Unit. She had some questions about my personal experience using the filter in my home.
I replied, “I actually don’t own an air filter at all. I live in a place with VERY clean air. If I were to purchase an air filter, it would be an EnviroKlenz.”
She was surprised and asked, “I’m just curious- how are you able to have a home with such clean air?”
I replied, “I specifically create homes with nontoxic materials so I don’t need to filter.”
“At the moment I am living with my mother-in-law to help her stay at home and not go to a nursing home. Her house was built 25 years ago so there are no outgassing materials here. Plus I live in the “marine zone” of the Pacific Ocean, which means I live close enough to the coast where the outdoor air is as if I were standing on the beach.”
“That’s how I do it.”
But I will also say that after going through the firestorm last fall, which spread smoke throughout the entire San Francisco Bay Area for a week, I’m considering getting an air filter. Not for everyday, but for emergencies.
Also, chemical smells (and odors like skunks) do occasionally wander over to me on a breeze and I’d like to be able to close up my room and run a filter when that occurs.
What do you think of Austin Air air Cleaners? A pediatrician I know recommended them and said they have “medical grade HEPA filtration”. We bought the junior version for our child’s bedroom many years ago. I am planning to buy another unit for the house, or at least for our master bedroom, but one person who sells another brand (obviously with a vested interests) said that a) there is no such thing as “medical grade” HEPA, and b) that the Austin Air air filters have glue in them, which would outgas……
Well, first I’m not a fan of carbon.
HEPA alone will not remove the toxic gasses. Only particles. Some gasses stick to particles, but you really need the correct technology for gas removal.
There are actually many grades of HEPA.
I don’t know if Austin Air filters contain glues, but if they do, they would outgas, unless Austin Air specifically uses glues that don’t outgas.
Thank you for your response…. can you elaborate on why you are not a fan of carbon? My understanding is that carbon filters are quite common as the pre-filter to the HEPA filter in air cleaners, vacuum cleaners, etc. Also, they are common, I think, as a pre-filter in water filters.
I’m willing to use carbon if there is not another alternative.
Carbon collects pollutants, holds them, and then releases them when the carbon is “full.” So carbon can actually end up being a source of pollution if you don’t change it in time.
As the carbon gets more and more full, you are actually running your air, water, or whatever, through contaminated material.
Some people the enviroklenz works great and for some it does not.
I have severe sensitivities and when I used it I kept getting g sore throats. I found out that some people react if a air purifier doesn’t have an encased motor. Like many other brands the enviroklenz does not have an encased motor
Yes, that’s true for every product, with regards to extreme sensitivities.
Many, many, many people with and without MCS LOVE this filter. There are many testimonials.
I asked EnviroKlenz why they don’t have an encased motor. They said, “We have a sealed blower, which means nothing is actually released back into the air that isn’t trapped in our filters or HEPA. Filters that need to encase their motors are those that release directly into the air or have plastic components.”
EnviroKlenz is the most advanced air filtration unit I’ve seen in forty years of looking at air filters.
Hi Debra.
Could you expound a little more about why this purifier is so advanced?
Is it because they use earth metals instead of carbon to capture odors? I’m wary of new technology because we don’t know the long term effects yet. Do you know if this technology has been used anywhere else, in other settings?
This technology has been around for a while. The filter is actually not made by an “air filter” company, it’s made by a company that owns the technology, which they then use to make useful products for many uses.
One notable use was clean-up after hurricane Katrina.
It just works better than carbon, and also many people with MCS react badly to the carbon and cannot use carbon filters.
In addition, the minerals actually DESTROY the chemical molecules. They are GONE. Carbon simply collects them.