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IQAir HealthPro Plus Air Cleaner

Keeping Nosey Neighbors At Bay

Franco Vitaliano

My neighbors in the high rise building where I live in downtown Boston tell us they swoon when walking past our door around dinner time. I like to cook, a lot, especially spicy foods, and please don’t spare the garlic. But I have a master plan to thwart their hungry, twitching noses, lest these people suddenly invade our dining room to destroy our food of mass distraction.  My secret weapon is an IQAir HealthPro Plus , a multi-stage weapon capable of wholesale obliteration of gases, odors, bacteria, soot, gaseous chemicals, dust, volatile organic compounds, and all types of airborne allergens, right down to .003 microns in size.

It’s performance is so good that the Hong Kong Hospital Authority selected the HealthPro Plus as the only air cleaner powerful enough to help defeat the spread of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome). The American Lung Association has also chosen the Swiss-made IQAir as its exclusive partner for indoor air quality. Not only am I keeping famished neighbors out, but I’m also eradicating billions of obnoxious tiny critters that can make me sick. In fact, this may be the perfect cleaner to have around when the national terror alert goes bonkers over a terrorist threat of a possible biological attack. The paranoid need look no further.

Each HealthPro Plus is individually tested and certified at the factory, as was my review unit, to make sure that the air cleaner shipped to the consumer performs exactly as promised. Conventional air cleaners typically max out at 0.3 microns. Unfortunately, particles smaller than .03 microns are considered the most dangerous. But IQAir’s patented HyperHEPA filtration system happily whacks out these ultra-fine particles, right down to .003 microns. IQAir’s top of the line HealthPro Plus was the world’s first room air cleaner certified under the stringent European standard called EN1822. (IQAir’s line of commercial air cleaners is number one in hospital use worldwide.)

Moreover, the HealthPro Plus is 100% ozone free. Although may it remind of you fresh spring rain, ozone emitted by those popular ionic air cleaners is actually a lung irritant, and if you are an allergy or asthma sufferer it’s bad news in the house.

The good-looking HealthPro Plus easily melds into the décor and it’s easy to roll around. It’s also a gadget’s lover’s delight. Beneath its clean, Euro-modern design is a complex multi-stage filtration system. It starts with your grungy air being drawn into the unit’s base, and it’s then progressively sucked up the IQAir’s 28” high tower. Your room air with all its nasty bits is first pulled through a two-stage PreMax filter that removes most pollution particles. The air next passes through the heart of the system, a powerful, 2,750 RPM centrifugal fan rated to clear a room at 700 cubic feet per minute. Next, the air is pushed through the V5-Cell filter, which is standard in the HealthPro Plus. (The standard Health Pro model can be upgraded to use the V5-Cell.) The V5-Cell is responsible for removing a wide spread spectrum of gases and odors, including those from my garlic cuisine rampages. Next, the particulate-filtered, degasified air is squeezed through several square yards of HEPA (high efficiency particulate air) filter. Finally, the thoroughly scrubbed air is returned to your room via a 320-degree air diffuser.

1. Micro-particle filtration
Eliminates micro-particles such as pollen, pet dander and mold spores.
2. Granular activated carbon adsorption
Eliminates volatile organic compounds (VOC), which are responsible for odors.
3. Pelletized chemisorption
Destroys harmful chemicals, such as formaldehyde, by an oxidation process inside a chemically active alumina pellet.
4. HyperHEPA filtration
Eliminates bacteria, viruses and combustion particles from automobiles and smoke, through a nano-fiber structure.

The HealthPro Plus is very quiet in operation in its three lower fan settings (there are six fan speeds), only getting objectionably noisy in its top two speeds. But the latter are for heavy duty, Clear-The-Room-Now! use.

The master control panel on the HealthPro is a small LCD that shows fan speed and associated cubic feet/minute (cfm) room clearing capability. The lowest fan speed clears the room at 45 cfm, and at its highest setting, 240 cfm.  A very nice feature is the use of LED’s that tell you how much useful life is left in each of the three filters (PreMax, V5-Cell, and HyperHEPA) before needing replacement. HealthPro filter life is dependent on fan speed.  The pre-filter lasts 7 to 14 months ($59, on the Net); the V5 Cell gas filter 10 to 21 months ($89, on-line); and the HyperHEPA filter 17 to 35 months ($189, on-line). The LCD panel can also tell you the hours of life remaining in each of the filters. No more, gee, honey, the room still smells bad, guessing when the room air cleaner filter is kaput. There is a small, slim remote control supplied with the unit.  You can also set the HealthPro’s auto-timer to start and stop at certain times of day.

Apart from successfully faking out nosy neighbors about what’s for dinner and feeling much healthier overall (I suffer from allergies), my other test for air cleaners is our black lacquer credenza in the living room, which attracts dust like horse racing addicts to the two dollar window. Remarkably, with the HealthPro Plus running at fan speed number three only a few hours a day, the top of the credenza was virtually dust-free, even after several days of leaving the patio door open day and night. Impressive…

Consumers Digest found the HealthPro Plus to be "ideal for allergy sufferers" and praised its ability to clean air in large spaces, and despite its hefty price tag, rated it a “Best Buy”. The IQAir Health Pro Plus can be found selling on-line for less than $800. It’s very highly recommended for anyone who wants the best

And yep, when the national terror alert goes code red, my head will be duct taped to the IQAir.

21st, The VXM Network, https://vxm.com

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