PSA: That $200 air purifier I bought was a total waste during wildfire season

Last summer when the smoke got bad, I dropped $200 on a fancy air purifier from a big box store. I thought it would help my asthma but it barely made a dent in the smell. After three days of coughing nonstop, a buddy told me to just tape a furnace filter to a box fan for $40. It cleared the room way faster than the expensive unit ever did. Now I'm stuck with this pricey paperweight. Has anyone else had a store bought purifier let them down like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

smith.nancy29d ago

Wait, @the_fiona, so those consumer reports actually proved the cheap hack works better?

the_fiona29d ago

Oh man, I read an article about this exact thing during the last big fire season. A bunch of consumer reports came out showing that a lot of those expensive purifiers just don't cut it in heavy smoke conditions, especially ones that use cheap HEPA filters. The box fan trick is basically an old hack that HVAC people have known about forever because the thicker furnace filters actually trap more of the fine ash particles that cause that burning smell. It's wild that the big brands charge so much when a simple setup works better.

the_anthony29d ago

Realize this is just how everything works now. You pay triple for the fancy brand name version of something and it's actually worse than the basic stuff our parents used. Like fancy air purifiers, expensive nonstick pans that peel in six months, or those $40 light bulbs that claim to last ten years but burn out in one. Meanwhile my grandpa's old furnace filter on a box fan is pulling smoke out of the air better than a $500 machine. The whole system is designed to make us feel like we need the newest, shiniest thing when the real solution has been sitting in the hardware store for fifty years. It's exhausting keeping up with all this marketing nonsense when the simple answer is usually the right one.