Appliance Parts From ApplianceZone.net - Air Purifier Appliance Repair

Air Purifiers should stay as clean as possible in order to display as much efficiency as they can, that's why we offer these tips that should help save money and extend the life of you air purifier.

An air purifier is an appliance that cleans the air by removing impurities. An air purifier can clean the air in a single room, a whole house or an industrial workspace. Air purifiers are employed in situations where the air typically becomes unhealthy due to smoke, pets or pollutants such as molds, or when a work situation would otherwise be dangerous to the human operator, as when working with hazardous materials.

Air purifiers employ a variety of technologies to remove impurities from the air. The easiest to understand is the simple filter. The most common use of filters is in your home heating system, which employs a filter to clean the air before it returns to be reheated (or cooled).

Portable or room-sized air purifiers can also employ filters. These can remove impurities of different types, depending on the filter technology used. The finer (more tightly spaced) the filter material is, the smaller the airborne particles that it can remove from the air. HEPA filters, or High-Efficiency Particulate Arresting filters, are currently the finest and can therefore remove the most impurities. However, gases and other pollutants will not be captured by HEPA filters.

Activated charcoal in an air purifier can be used to remove gases and odor-causing small particles that a HEPA filter will not effect. Activated charcoal is a form of carbon that has been reduced to a very fine size. It interacts to bind pollutants and remove them from the medium (air or water) that passes through it; activated charcoal is often used in water filtration systems. It is also recommended in case of accidental poisoning; taking activated charcoal will cause the poison to bind to the carbon and pass harmlessly out of the system.

Some modern air purifiers fall into the 'ionic air purifier' category. Negative ions are associated with healthy air environments, around waterfalls and other rapidly moving water, or in the mountains. Airborne pollutants are positively charged, so the air in a smoggy city will have more positive charge than negative.

An 'ionic' air purifier creates and releases negative ions into the air of your home. These negative ions bond with the positive air pollutant particles, causing them to fall out of the air. Of course, they're still in the room, as dust on the floor, walls or furniture. Most ionic air purifiers feature a filtration system to filter the air of the neutralized particles as well.

Selecting an appropriate air purifier for your home should depend on several factors. If you or someone in your home has allergies, you will need to remove smaller particles than otherwise, which limits you to HEPA type filtering air purifiers, perhaps in conjunction with an activated charcoal filtering stage or ionic system.

Cleaning Your Air Purifier

Clean Collector Plates

Clean Carbon filter

Clean Electronic Cell

Cleaning Your Air Purifier

The air purifier should be unplugged from the wall and the top cover should be opened prior to cleaning. The electronic cell and pre filter easily slide out of the top cover of the unit. The dust and lint that have been accumulated in the pre filter can be brushed or vacuumed off the surface. If the pre filter is showing signs of dust or lint that is stuck to the filter, it can be wiped with a mild and all purpose cleaning agent to remove any stains or dirt that is stuck. It should then be rinsed with water and laid out to dry. Once the pre filter has become completely dry, it can be inserted back into the air purifier.

Clean Collector Plates

The collector plates and pre filter inside the units can become very dirty and the contaminants that the collector plates and pre filter are catching can become stuck on the filter. These contaminants can easily build up and this build up of dirt can cause the plates and filter to be less effective. The wires that are used to ionize the particles and give them their charge can also get a layer of dirt buildup that can cause them to become much less effective and unable to give the particles a strong charge. In order to prevent this build up of dirt affecting the efficiency of the unit, the electronic cell that holds the ionizing wires and collection plates and the pre filter should be washed regularly to avoid the dirt buildup. If the air purifier is used on a regular basis or continuously, these parts should be cleaned regularly. If the air purifier is used in extreme situations where a lot of smoke, chemicals or gases are present and must be cleaned, the air purifier should also be cleaned as much as possible to avoid the build up.

Clean Carbon filter

The carbon filter in these air purifiers may occasionally need cleaning, but not as many times as the collection plates or pre filter may need the cleaning. A stream of air or vacuum cleaner should be able to remove any dirt or lint that is present in the carbon filter. The carbon filter should not be washed, however, because it could disrupt the activated carbon and cause it not to have the ability to absorb odors anymore. The carbon filter should always be in place before turning the unit on and it should be replaced every 3 to 6 months for complete efficiency.

Clean Electronic Cell

The electronic cell in these air purifiers is easy to be cleaned and can be placed inside a home dishwasher. When run through a normal wash cycle, the electronic cell should come out clean and free of dust or dirt. The cell can be washed with any normal dishwashing detergent and may be hot after the dishwashing cycle. Once the air purifiers cell has cooled down and is completely dry, it can be placed back into the unit and should be back to 100% efficiency.

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