So I recently purchased a tower fan from Costco. It does get hot here in the peak of summer and thought I’d prepare myself this time. Plus the fact that it was on sale at Costco prompted me to pick one up. The one I got is the Seville UltraSlimline Fan Combo Pack. It was only $49.99 in-store and also comes with a tiny fan which I had yet decided where to put.
Anyway, it dawn upon me today that I never really figured out how tower fans worked. With the regular circular fans with the 3 rotating blades, those are usually the fans I’ve been accustomed to. My initial guess was that maybe there’s a small rotating blade on the bottom (or top) pushing air upwards (or downwards) and the innards of the fan just angles it so it blows out equally in the front. So I shined a flashlight into this tower fan and noticed a cylindrical object with many many slits in it spinning. It works similarly like a cyclone CPU fan where the spinning cylindrical object as able to move air in the mass. It’s actually quite genius because not only do you move a lot of air, it’s also very quiet. I wonder if we’ll start seeing these for computers.
And if you look to the right of my tower fan (no, not the shredder), you’ll see my air purifier. I purchased this at Costco over a year ago, probably more like like 1.5 years since I got it awhile before moving into my new home (which is almost a year now). The one I got is the Honeywell SilentComfort™ True HEPA Air Purifier with Germ Reducing Permanent Filter, model 18155 (a bit cheaper on Amazon.com). I have this guy pretty much on 24/7, and I can only assume it’s doing its job.
For the longest time, there’s these 2 lights that are on all the time: HEPA Filter and Prefilter. They both have a button next to them. I always just thought it meant if those lights were on, the filters were working. However, I noticed pushing those buttons don’t exactly turn it off, so that got me curious to exactly what those buttons did and what those lights did. I couldn’t find the manual in the box, so I ended up searching online and found the manual.
It turns out, if those lights are on, it means to go check the filters. I can’t remember the last time those lights weren’t on. I’ve checked the top filter every once in awhile, and it always appears to be clean (not a good sign I guess), but I totally forgot there was also a filter on the bottom. When I opened the bottom today, there was literally a centimeter of dust on what they call the prefilter. Ungsunghero says prefilter is just Honeywell’s fancy way of calling their carbon filters, which apparently is the case:
Honeywell® Universal Pre-filter – The Honeywell Universal Carbon Pre-filter helps capture large airborne particles before passing through the HEPA filter, therefore maximizing the HEPA filter life. The activated carbon per-filter also helps reduce common household odors.
After you check the filters and they’re okay, you’re suppose to hold down the associated button for 10 seconds and it’ll turn the light off and probably come back on 3 months later.
Anyway, the manual recommends changing the prefilters ever 1-3 months, and it’s been about 18 already. No wonder a thick layer of dust is there. Since I didn’t have any replacement prefilters at the moment, I took a vacuum and sucked out most of the dust and will be using that in the meantime until I find some replacement prefilters. I started searching online and found the cheapest to be at Amazon.com: Honeywell 38002 Enviracare Universal Replacement Pre-Filter for $10.73. Unfortunately my Prime membership had expired earlier this month and I didn’t renew it. So I’m contemplating, should I buy 3 prefilters, find some other filler, or pay $79 for another year of Prime membership. I decided to go the Prime membership route after finding an accomplice to join in the fun.
It also turns out my HEPA filter (the big giant roll) is a permanent filter and doesn’t need to be replaced. It does recommend that I vacuum it once in awhile to remove dust and dirt.
With that done, I was looking around at other fans and stuff and noticed some fans came with HEPA filters while others came with an ionizer. They were marketing the ionizer feature as an air purifier and that got me thinking how exactly ionizers work. According to Wikipedia: Ionic air purifiers use an electrically charged plate to produce negative gas ions that particulate matter sticks to (in an effect similar to static electricity). Many ionisers are sold as air purifiers, but in this regard they are very inefficient. They will clean the air to a small degree, by charging dust and smoke particles which will then be attracted to a neutral or positively charged surface. Heavier combined particles may precipitate (fall) out of the air should two smaller particles of different charge clump together.
And that ends my fun filled weekend. Sigh… I’ve spent so much money this weekend. With the Onkyo home theater system ($350 + tax), TV stand ($190 + tax), Maxtor 160GB SATA hard drive ($75 + tax – $50 rebate), Prime membership ($79, most likely /2), and Honeywell prefilters ($11), I’m looking at about an $800 initial bleed. Fortunately, many of these are one time purchases.