Okay, this might be a little bit off of the beaten path for a tech blog — but it gets there.  I live in the City.  So do a few million people.  And thousands of cars.  And hundreds of buses and trains.  And it all makes for a lot of dirt & dust and bad air quality.  You dust the house and even with the windows shut, there’s a thin layer of dust on everything the next day.  Yuck!

I’ve tried air cleaner after air cleaner.  From the ones that (apparently) can even detect when you fart (and suddenly turn on in a roaring rush of whirling fans to add to your embarrassment) to ones that lite up different colors to assure you that they’re doing something to your air — I’ve tried them all.  Read articles.  Changed filters.  All pretty much to no avail.  Oh sure, the air would smell a little cleaner (or just different) but it still seemed dirty as the dust bunnies would attest too.

Well, I can now truly say … success.  I gave it one more chance and I have to say I found a winner.  It ain’t the most beautiful of air cleaners (that would probably go to my Kenmore with sleek lines, ultra modern control panel, but ridiculously expensive replacement filters and a very large foot print).

The iLiving ILG938 Air Purifier lives up to it’s name.  Available through Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003VFGX6Q/ref=oh_details_o04_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) it not only clears air of particulate matter like many of the good air cleaners, but it actually seems to clean the air.  Dust simply seems to be … .gone (oh, you still need to dust, but gone are the next day thin layer of stuff on all of your belongings).  The unit itself is pretty small and (if you actually read the manual) should be mounted on something that’s a few feet off of the floor.  The HEPA filter is washable.  Let me repeat.  It’s washable.  For those of you who actually replace these buggers as they get dirty, you’ll understand what a $50-$75 filter cost savings that is right there.  It also includes the standard UV lamp sterilizer that you can get on high end units as well as Ionization (and mind you, this isn’t the girlie after-a-summers-rain ionization that you get on some of those units, this is a shut-the-door-turn-it-on-and-stay out of the room industrial hotel smoke cleaning ionization that actually cleans the air).  The Photo Catalytic filter I think is the one that helps keep the dust-be-gone (at least this is the one I’ve never heard of and this unit is absolutely great).  I just bought my second one of these for the other part of my house (the first is in my bedroom) and am looking forward to a nice, clean, good smelling, allergy avoiding, dust & mite free summer…. I highly recommend you consider the same!