Posted by NickD (24.240.212.148) on April 13, 2001 at 14:29:43:
I have CH's so send an Alpine salesman over to my home.
He comes in with this lightning storm routine that ozone is generated by lightning and that gives a clean fresh smell, he also brings in a fish aquarium, lights a candle inside, puts on the cover, flame goes out leaving smoke, presses a magical button and the smoke clears.
He insists on leaving his little box purifier even though I said neither impressed nor interested, out of curiosity, turned it on and let it blow in my face, was CH free, but felt my nose stuffy up and the dreaded pain coming, clicked that sucker off.
I opened the vinyl clad particle board box to see part of a furnace aluminum mesh filter, a triac controlled shaded pole induction motor driving a 6" fan, and part of the flyback circuitry from a cheap black and white TV set, roughly about 20 bucks worth of parts. The mesh was hit with 12KV from the flyback transformer and you could play with the knob to vary the fan speed, that was fun.
What little air that would pass through this box would have the solid particles ionized that would be attracted to your walls, carpet, furniture, etc. loose it's charge than be recirculated again, nothing in the box to remove these particles.
Regarding the lightning ozone, this is definitely a misnomer, the lightning is caused by vast amounts of air turbulence with an associated cold front that brings in the fresh air, the ozone is very similar in nature to automotive emissions that tend to hang over in a cloud and is a strong respiratory irritant.
The salesman comes back and even after my story says he will knock down the price from $1,095.00 to $895.00 if I take his demo, I won’t go into details as to how I responded. I would highly recommend you buying one of these things if you miss getting a CH, see other similar units with names like SpringAir, SpringRain, and would be very cautious of any type of ionizer. Nuclear subs use carbon based filtering for air purification and these may be beneficial as there are many good air purifiers on the market, but don’t be suckered in by ozone generators unless you enjoy CH's.