Info on Friedrich Air Purifiers
The Friedrich Air Purifier is a relatively smaller brand in terms of market share, but it has a lot of devoted followers and satisfied customers. You'll want to take a look at their C-90 series - two models that are on the higher end of the quality and price range. Both these models get pretty good reviews, and have a big benefit in that you don't have to replace expensive filters - you can simply clean them.
This is a pretty high-end air purifier product - the C-90A goes in the $400-$500 range, and the C-90B will cost you roughly the same.
The Good:
It doesn't just use one filtration technology - the Friedrich C-90A uses multiple technologies, which is a good way to ensure that you're getting most of the particles out of the air. It uses a pre-filter (which gets rid of most of the bigger particles) along with some other technology to get smaller particles as well. One of these is an ionizer - something that charges particles so that they stick to surfaces. It also has a collection plate, which is a good supplement - there are some ionizing air purifier brands that don't use them, and you end up with dust on your walls and floors - the plates are basically just a surface that the particles have to pass once they're ionized, so they'll stick to them instead of your house. The last filter is a carbon filter, which is a pretty effective technology for getting at the finer particles that other filtration systems may have missed. The end result of all this is that the Friedrich air purifier does a very good job of getting the junk out of the air.
The Bad:
One of the stranger complaints I have heard about this brand is that it can interfere with TV reception if you put them too close together. This probably isn't a problem if you have any kind of cable, but it seems to be unique to people's houses as well (i.e., the grounding status). However, if you've got an old T.V. and you're in a smaller room, it might be something to be careful about. There are some products called white noise filters that will try to reduce this interference. The bigger problem I have is that it produces ozone. It's in small amounts, and the highest they've measured in testing is well below the EPA safety guidelines - however, the EPA has also issued a report saying that you should be wary anyway because ozone can get concentrated in certain areas around the air purifier and could still be dangerous. Some people are also sensitive to the smell. You also have to clean the filters fairly frequently (once a week or so), and the noise can get pretty loud if you are having to use it on the highest setting. The upside is that by cleaning the filters, you aren't paying all the money it costs to replace them. The carbon filter will need to be replaced periodically, but it's pretty cheap, especially compared to a HEPA filter.
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