I see, so it’d be better to get a larger one. I don’t know if my small purifier is good to be honest, but hopefully it’s good enough to get it down to 3 to 4 months as you said. 2 months would definitely be quite annoying for me to clean. I’ll look into a larger one then to get it down to twice a year and just 10 minutes of cleaning.
It's whatever you can afford. Lets go with that first. I like to tackle the entire room and not one small area as of course you are also breathing all of that dust as well.
A used Bionaire will cost you around here $25 to $50. New ones cost a lot more. Air filter Cartridges will cost you $10 to $14 each change. But you can clean out the filter with a vacuum cleaner to make them last longer. Or you can make your own filter as well for $1-2 dollars like I do for the smaller units. You can place your smaller unit closer to your working area/ computer and get almost the same results as the larger unit.
A larger unit like my Breath Smart will cost out $400 new. Used $150 and up. Filters can be expensive but you can get generic. Filter cleaning is important and has to be done at least every 2 months as it really picks up the dust in your room/area and you just use a vacuum cleaner for it. Filters cost $50+ for generic $80+ for regular. You can make them last depending on your environment 6 months to a year. I'm in the 8 month range but as stated before I vacuum my filter as needed and that is at minimum 2 months
If you really want to get inventive, here are a lot of videos on the DIY aspect on youtube.
For the record many of these do the job of getting dust out of the air but the deciding factor is the filter itself with all air purifiers/diy
For the Record. One of my successful businesses (before retiring) was in building cleaning and maintenance. I had to know all of this information on what is to be used in HVAC systems and ratings.
Minimum Efficiency Reporting Values, or MERVs, report a filter's ability to capture larger particles between 0.3 and 10 microns (µm). This value is helpful in comparing the performance of different filters The rating is derived from a test m
www.epa.gov
There will always be tradeoffs. This information given is opinion only. It is not gospel. It is what works for me.
So in Ending. IMHO
If you do not have the money. You might want to do a Diy project.
If you have some money you can go and buy a small used air purifier.
If you have more money you buy a used large air purifer.
If you have eyeballs of money then you buy new.
Maybe I got lucky but the reason why I said used is that the ones I picked up lasted me 5 or more years before needing repairs that I can do myself. It costed me less than 1 dollar a month I spent on a Bionaire and again your mileage will vary. And yea I would do it again if I had a smaller room or a single bedroom that needed one.
My Breath Smart is virtually a glorified high volume squirrel cage fan, with electronic do dads on it and a HEPA filter, that has a skin that makes it all looks nice. But its air cleaning area is good for over 1000 sf of room and it does the job well.
But over the years 46 years to be exact of seeing and using a box fan with a filter in the back in work shop type of environments... so yea they work too.
