I'm pretty religious about swapping out my HVAC filter every month. When I pay rent, I change the filter. That's just how I do it. Living in a beach town means the wind is pretty much always blowing, and in my case, it's blowing in from the Gulf. The means sand and dust are a constant. And at this particular moment, it's peak pollen season here! If I leave anything outside for a day or two, it's yellow.
PuroAir asked if I'd like to review its HVAC "Mega Filter" and air purifier. Would you have said no? Mind you, the air purifier arrived about three months after I'd already used up the HVAC filter, so they were evaluated separately.
The filters were the company's MERV 13 + activated carbon HVAC filters coupled with the PuroAir 240 air purifier. Basically, whole-house filtration through the HVAC system, and later a dedicated room purifier running nonstop in the living room.
The HVAC Mega Filter – which isn't cheap, might I add – uses a three-layer setup with MERV 13 media (which is pretty good, but is a fair few steps down from an actual HEPA rating), activated carbon, and a prefilter. The PuroAir 240, on the other hand, uses a pre-filter, HEPA layer, and activated carbon filter in its own three-stage setup. PuroAir rates the 240 for rooms up to 1,000 sq ft (92.9 sq m) and says it's good for dust, pollen, smoke, odors, pet hair/dander and volatile organic compounds (VOC).
Like I mentioned, I change my air filter every single month, and my house still regularly needs dusting. Every few days, I'll take a microfiber and go to town on every flat surface. I vent my house once every day or two for a few minutes, because I like fresh air ... but in South Texas, fresh air = hot, moist, sticky, thick air, so I don't leave my doors and windows open long, and my AC runs pretty much 24/7.
I chucked the Mega Filter into my AC return and went about my business. After an hour or so away from the house, I came back to a very particular smell: "clean." Not quite like a Febreze spray smell, but more like a clean hospital – but in a good way. I'm guessing it's the activated carbon at play, and it turns out I really like that smell. I noticed the smell for about three weeks before I either just became accustomed to it and didn't notice anymore, or the copious amounts of beach sand wore out all of the smell-good in the filter.
PuroAir says the Mega Filters can last up to three months, but mine lasted about a month and a half before I couldn't help myself anymore and swapped 'em out for my usual US$40 for a six-pack of 3M filters that are rated well enough, but don't have activated carbon in them. At roughly $25-30 each, depending on when and how many you buy at a time, the Mega Filters are an expensive monthly subscription, in my opinion. Tempting, but not enough to get me to pull the trigger and buy more of them.
And the fact that mine only lasted a month and a half before I pulled them isn't so much a reflection on the filters; it's more of a testament to how absolutely terrible the air quality is in my town (and how poorly my house is sealed, perhaps). Again, beach town, wind, dust, sand, pollen ... I'm surprised more people don't have asthma here. If anything, the fact that I felt okay letting them live an extra two weeks tells me they were doing their job pretty well – at least well enough to quell my OCD. And there was also a noticeable decrease in the amount of dust in my house. That's a win.
I've had the PuroAir 240 running 24/7 since January, and it only just started flashing at me the other day to say it was time to replace the filter. That lines up with PuroAir's own instructions to replace the filter about every 90 days "for optimal air quality." I wasn't sure if it simply kept track of the days or if it measured airflow or what until I pulled the filter out, cleaned it off, tamped it out and stuck 'er back in the purifier. It was still advising me to change the air filter, so I hit the reset button, and it was happy again. That tells me it's simply counting down the days to remind you to order a $40 replacement filter and not taking a direct measurement of the filter's health.
I think I may have been asking a bit too much from it. The air purifier is surprisingly small for its claimed 1,000-sq-ft ability. Its squarish base is 8.7 x 8.7 and it's 14.2 in tall (22.1 x 22.1 x 36.1 cm). While my living room is only around 230 sq ft (21.4 sq m) with 8-ft (2.4-m) ceilings, there's a large arched doorway that leads to the kitchen, which is only separated from the dining room by a bar, etc., so it's a fair volume of air for the purifier to work with. And in the year I've lived here, my ceiling fan in the living room has only ever been turned off to dust it, so the air is always moving.
There wasn't really a discernible difference in the amount of dust on my entertainment center with the air purifier plonked down right next to it – not like there was while using the HVAC filter. Perhaps slightly less than pre-PuroAir, but when I could run my finger across the top of the air purifier after a few days and sweep up dust from it, I wasn't sold.
I will say though, that the 240 is super quiet at 24 dB. I almost never heard it running and I simply left it on auto the entire time. I'd have to get within arm's reach to even slightly hear it most of the time. My house isn't particularly quiet, though, with three under four constantly running around causing chaos.
That being said, I moved it to my "office" about a month ago. My office (the only place I can find peace and quiet) is my RV that never gets driven anymore and just sits in my driveway. It's closer to 150 sq ft (13.9 sq m) in here, with much lower ceilings. If you know anything about RVs, then you know they're not particularly known for being air-tight, never mind that I have a UV laser in here that I sometimes use for various projects ... and the little PuroAir 240 has been doing great in this smaller space. It's not perfect, but it's still pretty fantastic.
If you were using it in a bedroom or a home-office-type setting rather than a mid-sized living room, I'd say the 240 is a solid choice. Anything bigger than that, and you're "going to need a bigger boat" that can move more air.
While the purifier isn't a "smart unit," it has a few tricks up its filter-sleeve, like a timer, four fan speeds – including a quiet night-time setting – or just auto mode. Plus, it has an air-quality display light that changes color from orange (baaad) to green (goood) depending on the air quality. Me like green.
Frankly, what more do you need from a box whose only job is to clean the air?
If I weren't such a cheapskate, I'd pony up for the HVAC Mega Filters, for sure. And in another 90 days, when the 240 air purifier beeps at me to change the filter again, I'll probably spend the $40 and get a new one, rather than just tamp it out again.
Product pages: PuroAir 240, PuroAir Mega Filter
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