One of the fastest growing trends for in-home air control of all sorts is the tower design. Not only are manufacturers using this style to create modern looking air purifiers, but it’s also quite popular with stand-up air fans and ceramic heaters. It seems like everyone these days is being drawn toward purchasing a tall, vertical air control unit for their homes. Mainly because these types of air purifiers can be placed anywhere inside a room. Due to their thin design, you can place the device in a corner and easily transport it to other rooms if you’d like. In this article, we review the top-selling air purifiers with a tower design by Honeywell. We’ll share with you the things they all have in common, what features are different and how current customers are reacting to these products. The Honeywell models we’ll be reviewing include: Common Features in Each Model Honeywell is constantly improving their air purification technology and in turn has developed several different products to meet specific needs for its customers.

However, what you’ll undoubtedly find is that there are certain features that each tower model they develop contains. That’s because these options are an integral part of the process for cleaning and purifying the air. Regardless of the model you choose, HFD-110, HFD-120-Q or HHT-090, you’ll enjoy these benefits:westinghouse 6-stage hepa air purifier - small room *Permanent main filter that captures indoor pollutants (dust, pollen, pet dander, smoke and mold spores)dinkydoodle airbrush cleaner ACH rating of 5x (circulates the room with fresh air up to 5 times per hour)oreck xl air purifier truman cell technology Ionizer for additional air filtration Single color choice: HFD-110 (white only) HFD-120-Q and HFD-090 (black only)

Energy Star qualified (low operating cost) AHAM certified (independent testing verifying air cleaning effectiveness) Tower design – 11″ (L) x 10″ (W) x 28-29″ (H) *The permanent filter in these models does vary in type. See next section for exact type benefits. How Each Model is Different It’s clear that not all air purifying options and features are attractive for every type of consumer. What may be right for one person, may not be best for another, and vice versus. Honeywell knows this fact better than anyone else. Therefore, in order to suit the air quality needs for the widest range of consumers, the company has modified each air purifier model in a variety of ways. Here’s how each model is different: Uses a permanent ifD filter that captures 99.99% of ultra-fine particles down to .3 microns. It’s washable and reusable for the life of the product. Includes an automatic shut off timer with 4, 8 and 12 hour intervals

Good for rooms up to 124 sq. ft. Uses a permanent ifD filter Good for rooms up to 170 sq. ft. Uses a permanent HEPA-type filter that only captures particles as small as 2 microns (quite inferior to the ifD filter mentioned above). It can be vacuum cleaned and reused for life. As you can see, each of these Honeywell air purifier models have a lot of features in common, with only a few slight differences. But, how do you decide on which one is best for your home? Here are a few things you should take into consideration before making a purchase. Hopefully these factors will help you make the right decision. The ifD filter is the current top-of-the-line filter for air purifying devices. It lasts for the lifetime of the product if cleaned regularly – saving you annual filter replacement costs. The main filter that the HHT-090 uses is highly inferior to the ifD filter that’s included with the HFD-110 and HFD-120-Q. In our opinion, the HHT-090 is a bad investment because it can’t capture the ultra-fine particles that cause a majority of breathing and health problems.

If you have allergies or asthma, you won’t notice much improvement in your health by getting the HHT-090 air purifier. The HFD-110 is the only model listed above that offers an automatic shut off timer. This feature comes in handy more often than you may think. Especially if you don’t want the device to run 24 hours per day or if you forget to turn it off after leaving the house. The difference in room size coverage between the HFD-110 versus HFD-120-Q may be a significant factor for you. Generally speaking, the HFD-110 can purify space that’s 10′ x 12′ while the HFD-120-Q can handle a room that’s 10′ x 17′.If you don’t already know this about me, I live in the state of Florida. While known for its rampant swampland and the occasional python-eating gator, Florida is also known as a breeding ground for allergens. I’m not sure allergens breed, but my point is people who have allergies have a rough time in this state. I have no stats to support that at the moment.

According to the AAAAI allergic rhinitis affects between 10% and 30% of all adults and 40% of children. Personally, in a house of five, four of us have allergies and two have asthmatic symptoms. So when Honeywell offered to send me their new air purifier to test out, the Honeywell AirGenius 5, it was a no-brainer.This article has been reproduced in a new format and may be missing content or contain faulty links. to report an issue. The picture is deceiving; I wasn’t expecting such a large box. At 30 inches tall, this isn’t one of those air purifiers you just stick in the corner somewhere. In the manual, which I read (well, only the English section), it actually recommends placing at least three feet from any solid piece of matter and keeping the floor around clear. So that was step one before even plugging it in: cleaning some floor space. Then, vacuuming because it suggested doing that too. So far, without even turning it on, the purifier had already cleaned up a bit. Multiply this by every room I placed it in and the whole house was getting mystically cleaned.

The Honeywell AirGenius 5 and its statically charged ifD filter sucks in a laundry list of allergens including mold spores, pet dander, pollen, household dust, tobacco smoke and any powdered Kool-Aid that you left in a pile on the carpet. Just saying, it happens. With five settings to choose from, the purifier goes pretty much from super low and quiet to mega not-so-quiet and super high. It’s advertised as being quiet, but let me tell you something about the concept of silence. Silence is relative to the environment. In the middle of the day, with the television on and the kids running wild through the house, and around the house, then the purifier is silent as a country breeze through tall grass. However, if you have it sitting in your bedroom in the middle of the night with it set on three (out of five) then “silence” suddenly becomes akin to Chris Farley in a ninja outfit. Compared to other products, or even a window air unit, it is quiet. Even at night, it’s really not that loud.

Not any more than the soft whirr of a hard drive in moderate thought. The motor is quiet overall. Again, it’s all dependent on the environment. It’s required that you leave the purifier on for 24 hours at a time, but I found myself switching it off at night for one major reason, which I’ll get to in a second. First, how about that air quality? The first thing I noticed after just a few minutes with the purifier in the center of the room was how crisp the air being output was. There was a definite cleanliness to it, as someone with any kind of respiratory problems would attest to. But there would be two more major tests of the power of a good air purifier before this review would be written. The first would be handling the air quality around my dirty laundry. Again, any dust or pollen from the outside stuck to my clothes was rightfully sucked out of the air and destroyed by the static filter. My room is in the back of the house, the last to get fresh air so having a crisp, fresh room was certainly a treat.

I even left it on overnight, ignoring the relativity of silence, to keep a fresh blast of sharp and allergen free air on myself. The second would be handling the air quality in the boys’ room, which at the time of testing had become something of that in a third world country. You see, a certain 11 year old had literally left a container of tuna behind his bed, for at least two weeks. When we finally identified the source of what we were starting to think was a dead rodent, I knew that this would be the ultimate task of the air purifier and a gallon of Febreze. Mind you, this is an air purifier, not an air cleaner. So while it certainly sucked all the allergens and mold spores (of which there were many, as well as a growing community of maggots) out of the air, a constant stream of Febreze was needed to handle the bits of odor that couldn’t be contained by any filter. Within the same day, the smell was gone and the air in their room was just as fresh as the hour preceding them moving into the room in the first place.

Honestly, this purifier is great from a clean air perspective. I noticed that I wasn’t waking up stuffed up, and the air in the rooms that it stood in for a while felt crisper and not so humid. There was just one problem with the unit, and you can look at it however you want. I’m not an engineer, so perhaps I’m over reacting, but the snap, crackle, pop of the static filter can be a little disconcerting. At first I thought it was popping when it was oscillating (it does that too, and I should mention the glowing blue touch pad display for controls is pretty darn nifty), but it appeared to be doing it at any setting and angle. So I unplugged it, waited a few minutes (as the only warning on the filter says to do) and removed the filter. Then promptly got electrocuted. Now, that struck me as odd. Why was it holding a charge after being unplugged? Perhaps something wrong with the distributor? I’m not an engineer. So I asked one. “It’s broken,” said my father, a mechanical and electrical engineer.

Ah, so I sent that unit back. Perhaps it was just an early one off the line, either way the next unit, while still snap, crackling and popping like a bowl of Rice Krispies, didn’t electrocute me when I handled the filter outside of the unit. So I wrote that off to the filter doing its business with the static electricity to attract dust. Regardless, that crackling sound can get a little weird when the room is silent, such as night. While I don’t believe internal static electricity is a fire hazard, and the unit was grounded (being on the ground) it still sounds odd to me. Some part of me expected not to hear such electrical noises outside of the machine. I should also note with the first unit, I saw lightning inside the machine. That hasn’t happened with the second unit. Honeywell assured me that the first unit was most likely defective. Since the second unit is basically acting fine, that’s believable. If you are looking for a high quality air purifier, the Honeywell AirGenius 5 should end that search.