Honeywell Air Purifier

Seasonal allergies have affected me since I was 18 years old.  Luckily, I have them mostly under control by taking 2000 mg of a supplement called MSM daily.  However, I have noticed this year, although I feel good during the day, I have been very stuffed up at night and have resorted to using nose spray in the middle of the night just to breathe well.

My brother-in-law developed very bad allergies last summer, and he told me that he purchased three air purifiers (two Holmes and one Honeywell), and have them in separate room of their very large home, and his symptoms have gone away.  I decided to bite the bullet and buy an air purifier.  One thing he warned me about was the expense of the HEPA filters, which were running him $40 a pop, so I was hoping to find a good air purifier that had a permanent air filter.

My Search

I shopped at WalMart and Fred Meyer stores, but they both seemed to carry the same units, which were the Holmes, Honeywell, Filtrete, and another brand that I am not familiar with.  Since my brother in law had such good results with the Holmes and Honeywell, I focused on those two. 

The next thing I did was check the type of filters that each of the units used, then looked to see if the store carried replacement filters for these models.  I was very disappointed to find that I could not find one replacement air filter for the models I was interested in!  I ultimately decided on the Honeywell 17000.

Description

This air purifier is made of a light cream colored plastic, and it has a bit of a different shape to it.  Some of them were round, others were tower shaped, but this 17000 model has a totally different look, as you can see by the picture at the top of this page. 

It comes with a Quick Start Guide and an Owner's Guide, which is good for two models, the 17000 and 17005, so I checked the box, and my model is the 17000.  I can see by reading other reviews here that Honeywell has changed this a bit over the years, but still calls it the 17000.  This is a lightweight, portable air purifier with a nice carrying handle at the very top. 

This model has three settings, high/medium/low, and an off button.  It also has a "check filter" feature that tells you when the HEPA and pre-filter need attention.  The HEPA filter consists of paper pleats, and you must take care not to tear them when cleaning with a vacuum. 

The Claims

This Honeywell 17000 makes some amazing claims.  First, it says that it is "The Doctor's Choice".  It claims to eliminate airborne viruses and bacteria, circulate the air in a closed medium sized (200 square feet) room five times an hour.  It's supposed to be 35% quieter, reduce odors, and it uses a permanent HEPA filter.  Each of these claims is followed by an asterisk numbered 1-7.  Unfortunately, in order to see what Honeywell is referring to, this is printed on the very bottom of the box, and not something most people would look at.  I didn't read it until the box was in hour home, with the air purifier removed.

The claim that it eliminates airborne viruses, bacteria and microscopic allergens is based on the air that passes through the filter, and it's based on testing that ran the unit on the highest speed for two hours.  It is said to have reduced bacteria by 96.6%, viruses by 95%, fungi by 93.8%, and last mold by 95.7%.

The claim that it circulates room air five times every hour is based on operating the unit on high, and the box reads air circulation depends on many factors, such as room size and configuration.  There is no guarantee that all of the air in a room will pass through the filter.

How about the permanent HEPA filter?  This claim is based on "ordinary care and use", and assumes you vacuum it 2 times a year for five years. 

The 35% quieter claim is based on comparisons to "other" true HEPA products.

The "reduces odors" claim applies if you operate the unit with the carbon activated pre-filter, and it is recommended that this be replaced every 3 months.

Last, I found the claim that this is "The Doctor's Choice and #1 Brand Recommended by Allergists" to be somewhat deceptive.  This claim is based on a survey taken in 11/05 that reported 91 out of 120 responding physicians chose "Honeywell Enviroacaire", which is NOT this particular model!

My Experience

The QuietCare 17000 Air Purifier says it will reduce household dust, pet hair & dander, cooking & tobacco smoke, mold spores, pollen, grass & tree pollen, and certain bacteria & viruses.

For the record, we don't have pets that shed their hair, and neither my husband nor I smoke.  We do deal with a lot of dust in the Spring and Summer, as well as mold, pollen and bacteria. 

Set up of the unit was simple.  There is a knob on the side, which you unscrew to remove the HEPA filter (which is quite large).  You then take the black pre-filter, wrap it around the edges, and secure it with the two velcro tabs included.  Put the filter back in the unit, put the locking knob back, and plug it in. 

I chose the high setting, and was astounded by how loud this was!  There is no way we can sleep with that kind of noise.  I wear earplugs at night due to hubby's loud snoring, but I didn't want him to suffer because of me.  Likewise, the medium setting was also very loud.  The low setting was still louder than I'd like, but it was manageable.  Still, even with earplugs in, I can still hear it slightly.

As directed, we ran it on high for 5 minutes, then lowered it to our desired setting.  This is supposed to be run 24/7.  (I am hoping it won't raise our electric bill too much, I will update on that, but since we are on even billing, I won't know until next year.

As suggested, we closed all of the windows in our bedroom, which was a sacrifice for my husband, but I have been trying to tell him for years that I would sleep better with the windows closed due to my allergies to pollen. 

We have used this for several days now, and I notice a major difference in my comfort level!  I have not had to use nose spray one time since this has been running in our bedroom.  We have it on the medium speed during the day when we don't have to hear it, and lower it to the low speed at night when we go to bed. 

One thing I don't like is that the directions say it should be placed at least 3 feet from any wall or furniture, which basically means it is out into the room all by itself a bit, which took some getting used to, but nothing major.  I just thought I would mention it in case you have a small room and aren't able to do this and still maintain a safe walkway - nobody needs something to trip over in the middle of the night!

So far I have been quite pleased with this Honeywell 17000 Air Purifier.  Our room has a pleasant clean scent to it, which is nice, since we use doggie pee pads for our older Silky at night, and she uses them several times a week.  We dispose of them every morning, but still sometimes there is a lingering scent, and this unit has taken care of that as well as helped me to get a better nights sleep.

For those wanting a model with more options, this is also available in the 17005 model, which has a remote control and it runs on a battery back up so you can set it to turn on and off at a desired time. 

I am a bit disappointed that I still have to purchase the pre-filters, because the fact that this contained a permanent filter was a big selling point for me, however it will still be much cheaper to maintain since I don't have to also replace the HEPA filter.  All in all I am happy with it's performance, and my husband assures me the noise level does not bother him at all.  It is similar to running a fan on low speed.  The unit does draw air into the room, filters it, and shoots it back out of the room, and this tends to blow cooler air (at least for us, we sleep with the furnace off in the summer), acts as a fan to cool the room somewhat on a hot day. 

I am also disappointed in the noise level, as from the description I felt it would be much more quiet than it actually is.  I also want to add that there are green lights that come on next to the level it's set on, and this bothers my husband.  The lights are bright in a dark room, and illuminate on the ceiling a bit.  He asked me to put masking tape over them, which didn't work, they still showed through - so I put some black electricians tape over the light, which blocked it out.

I would rate this 4 out of 5 stars, based on the fact that I am no longer using nose spray at night, and this has helped me to breathe much better and get a more restful nights sleep.

This retailed for $133 at WalMart, and $119 at Fred Meyer.  I paid more for it at WalMart because Freddies only had one model and the box was very damaged, with three large holes in it.  Definitely shop around to get the best price, as they obviously vary from store to store.