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Comment by samcheng | Hacker News Reader

Cool! $1000 for a "Hyper HEPA" filter.

Maybe a good insurance investment for the company with a room full of 3D printers... after they pay for the HVAC guy to come in and install some real exhaust ventilation duct work.

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Just want to point out that any company can use the word "HEPA" as there is really no industry standard/federal minimum for what it means to be HEPA. So you can basically have a paper towel in the back of a fan and call it a HEPA filter.

Can you expand on this? It does look like there are HEPA specifications[0]. Are you saying that a product that doesn't meet those standards can still legally be labeled as HEPA? Yikes!

[0] E.G., http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2013/06/f1/doe-std-3020-2... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HEPA#Specifications

Hi! Sorry for the late response.

You are mostly correct. However, per your links, using "HEPA" with any prefix or suffix is problematically allowed. The specifications laid out by the DOE are mostly for DOE facilities and so they have their own version. Everyone else is using their own brand of "-HEPA-" which can mean <0.003 pm or not and is therefore misleading.

Thanks for the response! To make sure I understand this correctly: If I find a product labeled as "HEPA" (w/o a prefix or suffix such as "type," "like", "style," and "99%") then I can be assured that the product does meet the standard of removing 99.97% of particles that have a size of 0.3 µm?

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