Blueair 501 Air Purifier Review
Customers say that this air purifier makes a noticeable difference in their homes, and generally recommend it as a good quality unit. A HEPA filter combined with ionizing filtration make the Blueair 501 a good choice.
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With all that talk about smog and acid rain, indoor air quality is something that we used to take for granted. Now we know that with all the chemicals we use to build our homes, these places of refuge are actually making us sick. There’s a solution – air purification units – but after the Sharper Image case, people became more cautious about buying these machines. How can you tell a good model from an ineffective one? Which of these competing technologies actually works?
Well, there is an industry standard, and it’s called the Clean Air Delivery Rate. Although it’s not a perfect system, it’s a decent high-level way to compare air purification units as far as their ability to remove a select range of particles from the air. The company Blueair produces purification units that consistently score very high CADR ratings, and with a wide range of models and prices to choose from, there’s probably one to fit your needs. In fact, the Blueair 501 Air Purifier is nicely sized – and priced – to be the main air purifier for a home. It has a unique design that you can use pretty much anywhere, and it really is quiet enough to use all the time on almost any setting.
Top-Notch Air Purifier at a Good Price
Blueair consistently receives some of the highest ratings for air purifiers, and while the Blueair 501 isn’t quite in the same league as its most efficient (and expensive model), it makes a really great showing compared to other models in its price class. Some of the features that set this unit apart are:
- 270-degree air delivery system for maximum circulation
- Two-stage HEPA filters particles down to 0.1 micron wide
- Enclosed ionizer for extra filtration without the ozone
- Very reasonable noise levels from different speeds
CLICK HERE for customer reviews of the Blueair 501 Air Purifier
SurroundAir System for Total Coverage
The Blueair 501 combines the best features of a 360-degree unit and a wall-mounted unit. It sucks air from the floor like a 360-degree unit, so you can place it anywhere in a room to take advantage of the best air circulation. But instead of sending out clean air in all directions, it does so in an arc along the top and two sides. This makes it ideal for use either in a central location or against a wall, behind low furniture, or in a variety of other spots where you can’t put a 360-degree model. With intake and outflow from a variety of angles, there’s a lot of air being exchanged without a windy draft.
Environmental Friendly HEPA Filters
The Blueair 501, like any effective air purifier system, uses HEPA filtration, which specifies the removal of 99.97% of all particles down to 0.3 microns in size. Blueair’s special HEPA filters go even further than that, removing that percentage of particles down to 0.1 microns in size. That means that more animal dander, dust mite allergens, and smog and smoke are removed from the air than with a regular HEPA filter. Smokestop filter kits are available with activated carbon to remove volatile organic compounds (VOCs) like smoke and formaldehyde, and Blueair offers a six month filter subscription program so you don’t have to keep track of your filter changes.
Safer Ionizing Filtration
Ionizing air purifiers can significantly reduce the amount of airborne particles in your home, but they can also introduce variable amounts of ozone, which isn’t something you want to breathe in large amounts. The Blueair 501, however, employs a smart enclosed ionizing filter. The incoming particles are ionized before being sent through the HEPA filters. This increases the amount of particles that are attracted to and trapped within the filters while keeping the amount of ozone produced very low. It’s a really effective system. In fact, the Blueair 501 has one of the highest Clean Air Delivery Rate ratings within its price range: dust 390, smoke 380, and pollen 390.
Range of Speeds with Tolerable Noise Levels
The Blueair 501 offers a nice range of four fan settings so you can balance you need for clean air with your need to carry on a conversation. The great thing about the 501′s fan settings, though, is that almost all of them can be used while you’re actually in the room. The lowest setting is utterly silent, and settings two and three are quite tolerable. Setting three can be used for white noise and filtration in a bedroom at night. The top level is too loud to abide for long periods of time, but since you’ll only ever need it during the initial cleaning phase and for period clean-outs after that, one loud setting isn’t anything to complain about.
Customer Feedback
The Blueair 501 has received positive feedback from all corners; it’s earned 4.5 out of 5 stars across internet review sites, including Amazon.
- “It runs quiet, it moves huge volumes of air and the filters are obviously doing their job. My allergies have subsided to a point where I no longer take meds!”
- “‘Quiet and efficient’ was what we were hoping for, and we got it. This unit uses half the electricity of my previous, much smaller air cleaners, and it is whisper quiet with four speed control.”
- “My blue air 501 looks are very stylish with modern day design; it enhances the area being used in. The operation of unit is delightful and quiet as promoted to be.”
- “I dusted in the master bedroom which gets the most dust (8 windows alone) and let this puppy go. Oh there was still dust after a two week period but then I dusted again and turned it off….the room was caked in dust so this purifier is definitely doing some heavy duty work.”
- “I was skeptical since no other air purifier has done me a bit of good, but just a few days after plugging it in I noticed a difference. The air seemed fresher. I wasn’t sneezing all the time, my eyes weren’t burning, and I actually felt at home in my own home for the first time since I moved in.”
One complaint that comes up regularly is that there is no pre-filter in this model, or in any Blueair model, so when you change the filters you have to vacuum inside the unit to remove built-up clogs of large debris (hair etc) from the grills. If this is a big concern, it might be possible to rig up an air conditioning filter or even a mesh screen on the underside of the unit to act as a pre-filter. Then again, vacuuming only takes three minutes.
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