One of the units came with a slight problem, after 5 minutes on the phone with IQAir, they FedEx’d me a brand new unit with prepaid shipping for the broken one. Great customer service!

I recommend IQAir HealthPro unit to anyone who wants to invest in a product that will work wonderfully for years, backed by a great company and will be the last air purifier that one will ever need to purchase.

Rating: 5 / 5

1. Air is Cleaner

2. Unit is easy to clean

3. Great controls and remote

4. 6 Speeds

One Con is the cost. I am going to buy one for upstairs. This one I use
in the basement. We cleaned out a mold problem and this seems to be taking care of
any leftover spores and dust.

Wish it were cheaper, but love it!
Rating: 5 / 5

I started off with five (5) re-conditioned Sharper Image air purifiers that I bought on eBay. I still have those and they do pick up some dust and do make the room smell better but only to a limited degree since they’re passive systems. I then bought 5 new fan driven Sharper Image units which were very expensive and not at all effective. I returned them all.

That’s when I bought the IQAir units. To be honest, I don’t recall why I bought these units over the others since it’s been years since I bought them.

I bought these units since I didn’t want to retrofit my HVAC system and I wanted to control each room separately.

I’ve owned four (4) IQAire HealthPro Plus units for about three (3) years. All are still working without any mechanical problems. I first bought two units to test out then a few months later I bought another two.

I bought all these units because our noses were always running (allergies?) and every surface was coated with dust. The dust on all of the furniture was driving me crazy. I’d clean a surface one day and a week later it was like it was never cleaned. When the bright sun comes in at the late afternoon in a raking angle, I could see countless dust particles.

Our living environment: No rugs, wooden floors, leather chairs and couches, no pets, no one smokes, most cooking that would contribute to smoke or grease is done outdoors. Doors and windows, unfortunately, are closed almost all of the time because of the humidity or pollen. Despite what I would have thought was a clean living area, I’m surprised by the amount of dust.

We placed two (2) units downstairs which has an open floor plan (no walls). One in the TV room and one in our bedroom.

If you have shedding pets, fry foods, smoke, have carpets then expect to spend a lot of money replacing the filters on a frequent basis.

Almost immediately after buying these, our sneezing and the amount of dust dropped significantly.

The charcoal is very effective at removing odors. It’s easy to tell when the charcoal has been saturated; the house begins to smell. When I was cooking spaghetti sauce with garlic, onions and spices people upstairs could tell that I was cooking. That’s when I replaced the expensive charcoal filters.

To be brief, here are the pros and cons of these units:

Cons:

They’re very big. We have a small house and we live with the bulky units but we have to walk around an object the size of a small refrigerator.

They’re heavy but they roll easily. The charcoal filter alone weighs a lot. On more expensive units, the charcoal filters can weigh 50 or more pounds.

At the highest settings, 5 or 6, they’re extremely loud but it’s not an annoying high-pitched noise. The sound maintains a constant frequency. The sound is very much like being inside the cabin of a plane. But due to the noise, we can’t use them when we’re in the room except at the lower settings. When we’re talking, we turn them off.

They generate a lot of heat. In the warmest months of summer I don’t use them since the air conditioner isn’t powerful enough to keep up with the heat. If you live in a very warm/hot climate, expect a significant bump in your electricity bill.

The filters are expensive. I just replaced the pre-filter and carbon filters for all 4 units. That set me back about six-hundred dollars. I probably should replace the HEPA filters but the thought of spending another eight hundred dollars for all four units is somewhat overwhelming.

Pros:

They’re great white-noise generators. We keep the bedroom air cleaner at 3 (middle setting) almost all the time. We raise the power setting to 6 (the maximum) when we leave the house. When we have a guests staying over, we put one of the units in their room. While I’m writing this review, I have three units running at full power in other rooms which does mask a lot of outdoor noises.

They generate a lot of heat. In the colder months, we keep them running almost non-stop since they clean the air and help warm up the house. Remember, when it’s cold outside, there’s no such thing as wasted heat from any light fixture or appliance since they’re helping to heat the house. The two units downstairs running at the highest setting will keep the house warm when it’s about 50 degrees outdoors.

Very effective at removing house odors. When the house starts developing odors, you know it’s time to replace the charcoal filters. I ignore the timer on the LED readouts.

They do remove almost all the odors and dust. Before we bought these units, when we stepped into the house after being out for a few hours, we noticed that the house had a punky odor and we thought that we kept a very clean home. The Sharper Image units really did help on the odors. We bought three (3) Sharper Image units downstairs and the UPS delivery guy who we’ve known for a number of years asked why our house smelled better. But the Sharper Image units only pick up a relatively small amount of dust. With the IQAir units running, there’s no visible dust in the air when the sun hits the house on a sharp angle. Of course, the microscopic dust particles can’t be visually seen but since we don’t have to use any medicines when the IQAir units are running, I believe that they’re capturing the tiny harmful particles. In the dead of summer when I don’t run the units, the Sharper Image units need to be cleaned much more frequently and the sneezing and running nose flares up again.

Very reliable. They’re built like tanks. No dents or breaks in any of the 4 units. No mechanical problems in 3+ years.

Other thoughts:

The filter timers on the units don’t make any sense to me. If you smoke, fry food and have a dusty house, the filter life will be much shorter.

Ignore the timers but don’t ignore the pre-filter. One of my units became noisy. I thought the motor was dying. It was making an awful high-pitched, warbling noise. I looked at the pre-filter and saw that it was coated in dust. I vacuumed the pre-filter and went outdoors to blew out the remaining large particles of dust with a high-pressure air gun. This eliminated the noise which gave me a few additional days of life until the new filters arrive.

Even with the IQAir units running, the Sharper Image filters still do pick up some dust each week which is why I keep them. At least they use near zero electricity and don’t require replacement filters.

I read the hyperbolic testimonials (reviews) at the Sylvane web site. One person wrote:

“Another great side benefit of these purifiers is that we have virtually no dust in the rooms where they are anymore. In an old house with hardwood floors, I used to remember being appalled by the dust bunnies but they are no more. And, these purifiers eliminate any odors, so rooms smell fresh and clean even in a musty old house. ”

This is utter nonsense. The air purifiers will not magically clean a humid, dirty house. What it will do is reduce dust particles and reduce odors in a clean, dry house. The musty odors are caused by living organisms which thrive in a humid environment.

Another person wrote:

“You can feel the difference in the air quality within an hour of turning the unit on. ”

I believe that’s the panacea effect — if a person wants to believe, then they will. I don’t think one could notice a difference in less than one day and that would depend upon the initial cleanliness and the size of the room.

Summary:

They’re big, noisy at the higher setting, they emit a lot of heat and the filters are expensive to replace. But they are very effective at removing a lot of dust and odors. If you have allergies, they’re a must have.
Rating: 4 / 5