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Comment by MrMcCall | Hacker News Reader

(< $1000 category)

Living in American public housing, we used our pandemic stimulus money to buy two RabbitAir MinusA2 HEPA air purifiers. At $600 each plus $95/yr (for filter change) they're utterly fantastic and the pre-HEPA stages are easily cleanable with a cheap air compressor and wet paper towels. The multi-stage filter system is quite quiet on level 3 (of 5) but will really blow at 5 and be nearly silent at 2. You can tell how well they work by how the filters build up over time. The build quality is top-shelf with exquisite tolerances.

I can't recommend them enough. In my travels, I learned my favorite aphorism, which comes from China, I believe:

>>> Pay a lot, cry once.

Our RabbitAir units are the finest example we can afford, easily our best quality-of-life investment.

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If you're into DIY it's possible to make a cheaper, more efficient and quieter air purifier than many consumer models. From what I understand the problem is that most devices on the market are designed to be small, which reduces the filter area and that again requires a stronger (louder & less efficient) fan. Going DIY also means no dependence on a specific brand's replacement filters.

Then again that doesn't mean off-the-shelf products are bad, for a single room even quite cheap ones can do the job. And they don't look like a fan taped onto filters, so there's that.

The English language version of that saying rhymes better I think: > Buy once, cry once.

I used to have a large Honeywell air purifier I special ordered to Australia that required a step down voltage transformer, it's really surprising how much better the air feels when it's truly clean.

How have they improved quality of life? Asthma?

Thankfully, none of us has had asthma. As far as anecdata:

The device does have a what-appears-to-be-accurate AQ (air quality) sensor on the side. In the presence of smoke, it turns red, cranks itself up, and then returns to blue (clearest) through purple over the course of some minutes. As such, I'd say that the "response curves" looked legit to my programmer brain, besides that the air certainly smells better.

I can definitely say, however, that -- having replaced the filters three times over these four years -- the HEPA layer (the inmost) definitely got brownish. Each 3-6 month pre-filter cleaning cycle had nice gradations of dust and stuff after each cleaning, sometimes a great deal if we were slacking.

Regardless, who knows what's been sucked into and blown through our ancient HVAC unit's ducts over these past decades, what with most people probably just buying the cheapest air filter possible? Why not err on the side of caution w/rt AQ?

Interesting point. I have $cheap brand air purifiers, and the filters never get that dirty—but we have radiant heating in the floors and no AC, so no ducts, so maybe that’s why?

I have allergies. I remember walking home from work one day thinking "Ah, my sinuses have cleared, the pollen must have finally gone." only to wake up the next morning all stuffed up again. Then it dawned upon me that work has HEPA filtered air, but my bedroom does not despite spending ~⅓ of my life there. Having an air purifier in my bedroom means I've avoided almost all symptoms of allergies for the last 5+ years without needing to resort to medication.

"Buy once, cry once"

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