Air Purifier Advice Needed

[sharktooth]

I need to get a hold of one of these but need some advice and recommendations. It’s for a 80sgm condo which is made up of living room leading onto dining area then kitchen. Toilet is obviously a seperate room as is the bedroom. So, do need to go for an 80sqm? I take it even when all the doors are closed inside if the purifier is just in one room it purifies all three rooms?

Next, recommendations on model, price and where to get,,, lazada, power buy etc.

cheers

[lopburi3]

It cleans the air in the room it is located and has airflow - not sure what you are asking but normal use would be use in living area during day and bedroom at night (unless you want to have two units).  Most bathrooms would not want as you need fresh airflow for smells (and often an open window).

 

So you need a unit that is rated for, or close to, the size of your LR or Bedroom (whichever is largest).  Most are able to buy good units in the 4-6k range - make very sure replacement HEPA filters are and will be available (many units sold here this could be an issue).

[piewarmer]

Samsung make a range of good purifiers between 7000 and 17000 bhat, new tech micro filters, have a look, better then spending 50 grand.

[Beggar]

Your windows should be tight and look where and for what price you can get replacement filters. 

[dimitriv]

I bought the Xiaomi Mi Air Purifier 3H recently on Lazada. It is the latest model from Xiaomi. I bought it after reading some good reviews.

 

It works well and has a PM 2.5 meter with display build-in. They are around 5000 Baht. But hard to get now because there is no new supply coming from China.

 

 

[Logosone]

The best air purifier for reasonable money is made by Philips.

 

This is according to reviews by European specialist magazines.

 

You can pick one up in Powerbuy for 4800 Baht, for rooms up to 49 sq metres. Central in Cent Fest sell a more expensive model for bigger rooms, prices start at 7999 for a room up to 69 sq metres.

 

 

Edited February 21, 2020 by Logosone

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

On 2/19/2020 at 1:19 PM, sharktooth said:

I take it even when all the doors are closed inside if the purifier is just in one room it purifies all three rooms?

 

That kinda depends... Generally, ideally, you'd want a purifier for each occupied enclosed/separate space. For example, if you have a combined kitchen and living room area, you can think of that as one space needing one purifier.

 

But if you've got a bedroom that's closed off by a closed door, and have an air purifier in the living room, the living room purifier isn't going to help the bedroom much, especially if the bedroom has windows or doors that will leak air from the outside.

 

Of course the other factor to consider is what rooms/spaces you occupy at different times of the day or night. For example, you probably want an air purifier to clean the air in your bedroom at night. But if the bedroom is going to be unoccupied during the daytime hours, you don't need a purifier there and/or can close the doors to that room and leave it unpurified during the day.

 

Air purifier units generally are reasonably portable. So one way some people might handle the situation with one purifier is to place it in the living areas during the daytime, and then move the unit into the bedroom at night time. Or, some people have two purifiers, one for their living area and the other for their bedroom, and turn them on/off as needed.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

34 minutes ago, Logosone said:

The best air purifier for reasonable money is made by Philips.

 

This is according to reviews by European specialist magazines.

 

You can pick one up in Powerbuy for 4800 Baht, for rooms up to 49 sq metres. Central in Cent Fest sell a more expensive model for bigger rooms, prices start at 7999 for a room up to 69 sq metres.

 

 

I assume you're talking about a unit like this one:

 

https://www.powerbuy.co.th/en/philips-เครื่องฟอกอากาศ-1649sqm-philips-ac082020-250659

 

Whether it's suitable for the OP depends on just how much space he needs to clean at any given time. Generally, you're supposed to buy a unit that's rated for a space that's larger than the actual area you need to clean.

 

 

[Logosone]

9 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

 Generally, you're supposed to buy a unit that's rated for a space that's larger than the actual area you need to clean.

 

 

That's what they say. And to make it interesting there are four standards of measurement. All quoted on the Philips air purifier box, which is how I found out. They are all wildly divergent. So according to one the air purifier is good for 20 sqm, using another it's good for 49 sqm. Depends which standard is used. That's why Philips showed all four.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

15 minutes ago, Logosone said:

That's what they say. And to make it interesting there are four standards of measurement. All quoted on the Philips air purifier box, which is how I found out. They are all wildly divergent. So according to one the air purifier is good for 20 sqm, using another it's good for 49 sqm. Depends which standard is used. That's why Philips showed all four.

 

I've been confused about that coverage range when looking at Phillips purifiers. But because I've never owned one or gotten serious about that brand thus far, I've never gotten into the nuts and bolts of which of their varying calculations is the best/most suitable one.

 

This is a recommendation on that general subject I came across lately:

 

[Logosone]

15 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

I've been confused about that coverage range when looking at Phillips purifiers. But because I've never owned one or gotten serious about that brand thus far, I've never gotten into the nuts and bolts of which of their varying calculations is the best/most suitable one.

Me too. At first I thought because it said the 'series' can clean 'up to' 49 sq m that there were models with different capacities. But turns out they meant according to the four varying standards for calculating clean air. Only when I got the box was that clear, and then only after a double-take.

 

So different organizations use very differing ways to calculate how much air cleaning is required in a room. For example:

 

The Philips AC1215, currently sold by Central for around 7900 Baht claims it is good for rooms up to 677 sq. ft. But that is based on the NRCC guidelines. Who the hell's the NRCC? It's the National Research Council of Canada.

 

To their credit, on their own packaging Philips also mention the AHAM standard, according to which the purifier is good for 222 sq.ft. A whopping three times difference to the NRCC. AHAM is the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers of the USA.

 

Then there's the British and Japanese standards which are somewhere in the middle with 313 and 333 sq ft for this model.

 

Anyway I have a living room of 8x4 m and huge ceilings of 3.80. Even so this would put the sq ft total still well below the most stringent AHAM standard figure of 222 sq ft.

 

The key is that it's not square footage but cubic footage that matters, ie including the size of the ceiling. Most people just go by length by width which is not sufficient.

 

Anyway the AC1215 has clean air delivery rate of 270 m3 per hour! Even with this huge living room with super high ceilings, that is open plan on one side I still notice this Philips air purifier makes a huge difference, you can literally feel the difference.

 

Of course the downside is that it makes me now even more sensitive to dirty air outside the house. Since I'm used to such clean air inside the house now, lol.

 

 

Edited February 22, 2020 by Logosone

[spidermike007]

Get the Ziaomi Mi Pro. It serves up to 500sf. I have one in the LR, and it works well. I have an air meter, so I test it. It also has a built in air meter, which displays the PM 2.5 - You will probably need two. The top reason for these units, is the low cost of the replacement filter. 600-800 baht. For 5 or 6 months use. Most of the others have replacement filters at 1500 to 4000 baht each. That is the dirty little secret in this whole air filter business. 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

3 hours ago, Logosone said:

To their credit, on their own packaging Philips also mention the AHAM standard, according to which the purifier is good for 222 sq.ft. A whopping three times difference to the NRCC. AHAM is the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers of the USA.

 

AFAIK, AHAM is generally considered the gold standard when it comes to such things.

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

3 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

Get the Ziaomi Mi Pro. It serves up to 500sf. I have one in the LR, and it works well. I have an air meter, so I test it. It also has a built in air meter, which displays the PM 2.5 - You will probably need two. The top reason for these units, is the low cost of the replacement filter. 600-800 baht. For 5 or 6 months use. Most of the others have replacement filters at 1500 to 4000 baht each. That is the dirty little secret in this whole air filter business. 

 

The downside about the Xiaomi units is a couple things...

 

--up until the 3 series model, their prior so-called HEPA filters were less than True HEPA capability, slightly less...

 

--their design feature is to build the HEPA and pre-filter into a single unit, so you have to replace it more frequently than you would a regular standalone HEPA filter with a separate (much cheaper) pre-filter that you can replace more frequently as needed.

 

On my Sharp model that has the two separate filter units, I'd probably change the carbon pre-filter every couple months, for a price of maybe $10 U.S.  But by doing that, the more expensive HEPA filter, about 1400 baht for my particular unit, lasted close to 1-1/2 years...

 

Edited February 22, 2020 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[Cristiancjb]

I just bought a Sharp FP-J30TA-A and was wondering if any of you has experience with this one. Does the HEPA-filter remove any odors? I tried but at least cooking smells and such are not removed but on the official site it says it should, don't know if there is any difference on the different colours of the same model (J30TA-P, or B...). 

 

Basically what I don't understand is if the filter has any activated carbon in it (which is the one that is supposed to filter odors).

Best regards

[lopburi3]

24 minutes ago, Cristiancjb said:

I just bought a Sharp FP-J30TA-A and was wondering if any of you has experience with this one. Does the HEPA-filter remove any odors? I tried but at least cooking smells and such are not removed but on the official site it says it should, don't know if there is any difference on the different colours of the same model (J30TA-P, or B...). 

 

Basically what I don't understand is if the filter has any activated carbon in it (which is the one that is supposed to filter odors).

Best regards

A quick view indicates that is a negative ion generator with a paper filter/fan.  No charcoal apparent and do not believe it has any.  Also do not believe filter is really HEPA as appears to be just Filtrate type material.  Negative ion is effective against smoke and will get that that odor out of the air quite well - but making it often makes ozone which will kill odors but also should not be used a living space at the levels required to be effective.  Plasma as advertised I would be very cautious with as often not explained what it is - I keep it off on my Hatari AP-12 unit (but that has a charcoal and true HEPA filter and does take most smells out of the air fairly quickly..  

[Cristiancjb]

1 hour ago, lopburi3 said:

A quick view indicates that is a negative ion generator with a paper filter/fan.  No charcoal apparent and do not believe it has any.  Also do not believe filter is really HEPA as appears to be just Filtrate type material.  Negative ion is effective against smoke and will get that that odor out of the air quite well - but making it often makes ozone which will kill odors but also should not be used a living space at the levels required to be effective.  Plasma as advertised I would be very cautious with as often not explained what it is - I keep it off on my Hatari AP-12 unit (but that has a charcoal and true HEPA filter and does take most smells out of the air fairly quickly..  

A bit weird that they say it's HEPA if it is not really that...don't they have standards about when a product can say it has HEPA when it really doesn't?

Also, any idea if it is possible to put some extra activates carbon filter on my unit and where to get one such?

[Chrysaora]

How amazing that with all these so called "answers," no one bothers to respond to the question.

 

You have 80 sqm.  Most of the normal purifiers claim 32sqm.

 

So buy one for the bedroom and two for the bigger room if that is how your condo is seperated.  I have three purifiers for 45sqm.

 

One in the bedroom, one in my office and one in the living room.  No room is too big for each of the purifiers.  You can likely run the bedroom on a slower and quieter speed, but I would run the other two on high speed.

Edited February 25, 2020 by Chrysaora

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

32 minutes ago, Cristiancjb said:

A bit weird that they say it's HEPA if it is not really that...don't they have standards about when a product can say it has HEPA when it really doesn't?

Also, any idea if it is possible to put some extra activates carbon filter on my unit and where to get one such?

 

No, Lopburi's comment above is wrong. The Sharp models do come with regular HEPA filters -- nothing at all related to Filtrete type filtering. And, while the units themselves do NOT come with a carbon prefilter, I have a very similar F30-TA model and there's room to place your own carbon prefilter sheet inside the unit between the HEPA filter and the unit's own pre-filter back cover. Doing so works very well and helps extend the life of the HEPA filter. Lastly, the final letter in the model numbers with Sharp is the unit's outside color indicator.

 

https://www.th.sharp/products/aexr-ekhruuexngfxkxakas/fp-j30ta-b?v=1195

 

 

I buy my carbon pre-filter sheets from Amazon in the U.S., because I also have a large Honeywell unit that uses their carbon prefilter sheets. So I end up using the Honeywell leftovers (that are cut off for proper sizing on the Honeywell unit) in the back of my smaller Sharp unit.

 

PS - Sharp claims their Plasmacluster technology does NOT generate high or problematic levels of ozone, which can be a respiratory irritant. And I've read some independent research info that seems to back up that contention. But, personally, I just leave the Plasmacluster feature turned off on my unit, and let my added carbon prefilter handle that kind of task.

 

And, as Sharp's documentation indicates, the F and J 30 units are basically sized to handle a single small to medium sized room....

Edited February 25, 2020 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[lopburi3]

43 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

No, Lopburi's comment above is wrong. The Sharp models do come with regular HEPA filters

In the videos I viewed they looked very thin and cheap and hardly more than what appears to be filter paper - but guess if our N95 masks can filter it may also do so but really did not appear to have much capacity.  Filters in Hatari and vacuum cleaners appear to be much thicker but only going from visual rather than personal use.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

33 minutes ago, lopburi3 said:

In the videos I viewed they looked very thin and cheap and hardly more than what appears to be filter paper - but guess if our N95 masks can filter it may also do so but really did not appear to have much capacity.  Filters in Hatari and vacuum cleaners appear to be much thicker but only going from visual rather than personal use.

Nope, I've got an F30 unit from Sharp at home, and its HEPA filter is the normal pleated variety that's about one inch thick with an external frame. I believe, their F30 and J30 units use exactly the same HEPA filter model.

 

 

Edited February 25, 2020 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Here's a YouTube video of the J30 unit that, at about the 45 second mark, shows the HEPA filter and how it fits into the back of the unit with the back cover being a kind of pre-filter, but not a carbon one. Which is why I like to add my own carbon inside.  Then there's more display of the HEPA filter itself later in the video.

 

 

[lopburi3]

10 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Here's a YouTube video of the J30 unit that, at about the 45 second mark, shows the HEPA filter and how it fits into the back of the unit with the back cover being a kind of pre-filter, but not a carbon one. Which is why I like to add my own carbon inside.  Then there's more display of the HEPA filter itself later in the video.

 

 

Have reviewed several and note that have much thicker filters - suspect what I viewed was older version as did not take notice of date and see they refer to new improved filter in several places and actually did not appear to call them HEPA filters in the videos I viewed.  I did notice one filter that had a carbon hanging filter so appears they are available as part of an improved HEPA replacement filter.

[Cristiancjb]

On 2/25/2020 at 7:39 PM, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Here's a YouTube video of the J30 unit that, at about the 45 second mark, shows the HEPA filter and how it fits into the back of the unit with the back cover being a kind of pre-filter, but not a carbon one. Which is why I like to add my own carbon inside.  Then there's more display of the HEPA filter itself later in the video.

 

 

Any idea of where I can order an activated carbon pre-filter here in Thailand?

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

1 hour ago, Cristiancjb said:

Any idea of where I can order an activated carbon pre-filter here in Thailand?

 

I don't, since I buy mine from Amazon in the U.S.  But Lazada would be a likely starting point.  The nice thing about carbon is it can be hand cut to fit whatever size you need with scissors. So it's easy to handle for getting the right fit for your device... very different from trying to size a HEPA filter.

 

[falang1969]

It's definitely a case of "you get what you pay for".....

 

I have a few of these and they really are excellent, cleans the air in a normal size room in 10 minutes, having measured the output it gets down to almost zero pm2.5 coming out of it. It has a pre-filter, then a separate charcoal filter and then a HEPA filter.

 

https://www.powerbuy.co.th/en/philips-เครื่องฟอกอากาศ-รุ่น-ac325920-237011

 

I also have 1 of these, but just isn't anywhere near as good as the Philips, having measured the output flow pm2.5, it gets nowhere near the Philips, it is much noisier as well. It also takes forever to get the levels down.

 

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/xiaomi-mi-air-purifier-3h-pm-25-oled-i712296381-s1365334092.html?spm=a2o4m.searchlist.list.15.345c1080iBHxoM&search=1

 

Yes, the Philips is expensive but does a great job, in our living room now it measures 3 per metre square on the pm2.5, almost 100% particle free clean air! You only issue is when you go outside you literally feel like you are walking into bonfire smoke! 

 

Having young kids, they are worth every penny!

 

Once you get one, you'll never be without one again!

[motdaeng]

12 hours ago, falang1969 said:

It's definitely a case of "you get what you pay for".....

 

i have a different opinion on this. my aim is to clean the air in my house / rooms

to a level of pm2.5 under 7 µg/m3. i can do that with a not expansive device as good

as with a very expensive one.

 

my point is, i can drive a "kia" from A to B and do not need a "mercedes" for that ...

Edited February 29, 2020 by motdaeng

[saengd]

On 2/21/2020 at 12:44 AM, dimitriv said:

I bought the Xiaomi Mi Air Purifier 3H recently on Lazada. It is the latest model from Xiaomi. I bought it after reading some good reviews.

 

It works well and has a PM 2.5 meter with display build-in. They are around 5000 Baht. But hard to get now because there is no new supply coming from China.

 

 

Today's price on Lazada, THB 9,000.

[Yorkshire Tea]

9 minutes ago, saengd said:

Today's price on Lazada, THB 9,000.

555!

 

Edited February 29, 2020 by Yorkshire Tea

[saengd]

3 hours ago, Yorkshire Tea said:

555!

 

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/xiaomi-mi-air-purifier-pro-global-version-1-by-pando-selection-fanslink-i533798815-s964488985.html?dsource=share&laz_token=ad5975e6991ada7e3317a6a840b71c4f&laz_share_info=32438183_100_100_100026972862_22292453_null