Best buy air purifier

Another plunge into Parker’s pandemic tech tips

Sarah Parker

Member: Gloucestershire

It is rare in my life that a purchase that makes my eyes slightly water turns out to be better than I thought. As part of my prep for the day when we emerge maskless – looking less likely – and as a buffer from the current flock of germs my thoughts turned to air filtration for the clinic. I had already been looking into ultraviolet light (UV-C) for a clinic steriliser and was intrigued by an article about installing UV-C light filters to sterilise the moving hand rails on parts of London’s underground escalators. I decided that definitely had to be part of any air filter I bought.

My hit list was a UV-C lamp, quiet enough to run during a treatment, powerful enough to clear moxa smoke or accidental car fumes through the window or smoke from the wood burner and clean the air in between patients. I live in hope this might reduce the 15-minute air clearing time (no guidance on this as yet).

I briefly got sidetracked by a very stylish Scandinavian hospital grade machine running at £2,000 〉 rensair.com

A bit too noisy on its lowest setting and too much money, but interesting info on their website about HSE recommendations re air filtration and Sage (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) recommendations.

The gist was to choose something that could filtrate at ten litres per second per minute per person and Sage specified fibrous filtration (HEPA – high efficiency particulate air – etc). UV-C was seen as beneficial if deployed correctly, but electrostatic or ionising devices were not proven to help with Covid-19. I then found a French firm AIRVIA medical selling direct 〉 airpurifier.co.uk

✔ It comes with a free room sensor so you can track how clean the air is. ✔ At 30 db on its lowest setting I can’t hear it running so great during a treatment.

✔ It has a five-year warranty, eight stages of filtration and deals with bacteria and viruses, allergens, pet dander, pollen, dust, chemical pollution, up to 99.97 per cent of fine particulates, smoke, toxic fumes and nano particles… so, even formaldehyde.

✔ And the UV-C lamp.

Cost: £889

On speed setting 5 it’s a bit of a tornado, but clears moxa smoke very quickly.

The sensor usually sits at 0. With two choseikyu moxa cones it shoots to 120. Five minutes of a moxa stick the other day made it go up to 500, but down to 0 before the next patient.

What's also interesting is I feel less tired at the end of a clinic day and the clinic feels different – fresher somehow.

All the info re the different filters is available at the website. They recommend replacing the whole filter once a year.

Just got to not get too carried away with checking the monitor too often. Best air in Gloucestershire.