Sean Walther's Blog

Allergy Update: Honeywell Tower, Honeywell Round HEPA and 3M Filtrete

Thanks to our new puppy, Olive (check out the link, she’s adorable) — starting in mid December I began a trip down allergy memory lane.  

I grew up with dogs (two great dogs) but developed an allergy as I got older.  Unfortunate for me, I love dogs.  

Recently we adopted Olive, and brought her into our home.  I knew things may not go aboslutely perfect.  

Here’s an excerpt from the post I made on December 30th describing the problems:

I have asthma, and significant dog allergies.  That is only for certain dogs though.  Olive is a hypo allergenic dog.  To her credit, she is much better than any previous dog my family has ever had.  However, it is still not perfect.

The first 5 days with her were bearable.  My nose stuffed up immediately, but that could have been from standing in the cold waiting for her to arrive.  The 6th day with her my lungs started to tighten up significantly.  This was unfortunate, Olive was already a loved member of the family.  

What helped it?  Air filters!

I did a lot of research online, and determined that the IQAir HealthPro Plus HEPA Air Purifier – Air Cleaner with with Gas and Odor Filter – HyperHepa Technology was the best out there (this is not paid, just my opinion).  If you have severe allergies, please check it out.  It is very expensive (the model I was looking at was easily twice the price of comparitive models), but sounded great.

The problem was that my lungs were in distress that minute, and couldn’t wait for the air filter to be delivered.  While waiting for calls back from distributors, I went to Home Depot and picked up some items:

• 3M FAPF03 Filtrete Ultra Cleaning Filter
• Honeywell HFD-120 Tower HEPAQuiet Air Purifier with Permanent IFD Filter, Black

It’s been another 2 weeks since then and I have to say, things are going smoothly.  I’m almost entirely off using my inhaler (I really think I took my inhaler too much, and I’m slowly getting off of it, my lungs don’t seize up anymore, I just have a cough that is really annoying).  I haven’t had a stuffed nose since those first few days.

We have adopted an additional Honeywell 50250 99.97% Pure HEPA Round Air Purifier since then to round up any issues we had before.  It has been nicknamed “R2D2″ — if you look at the filter, you’ll see why.

The only problem with the Honeywell HEPA is that it is pretty big, roughly 2/3 the height of R2D2 (seen to the side).  We found out we can tuck it neatly underneath a side table.  That helps a little.

It is very nice now, we don’t have to lug the Honeywell Tower around the house to whichever room I go into.  Fortunately, I spend 95% of my time in the office.

If any of you suffer allergies, have asthma, or other breathing issues — I strongly urge you to consider air filters.  Even the girl says she can’t believe how much cleaner the house is — both air quality and in general.  

We haven’t had to spend the $800 on the IQAir filter yet, and I don’t see a need to at this point.

Tags: 3m, air filter, allergy, asthma, filter, filtrete, honeywell, iqair

Back from Holidays (almost)

 

 

Our new dog, a Shih Tzu / Yorkie / etc mix.

It’s been a while, I’ve been traveling for the holidays.

The best part of the holidays has been spending time with our new dog, Olive (the photo should be here in the post).

She traveled from Rhode Island, down to Long Island, back to Rhode Island, up to New Hampshire and finally back to Rhode Island.  She couldn’t have been a better dog.  Most of the car ride she would curl up in the back seat and go to sleep.  Occassionally she would nose her way up into the front seat to sit on our laps.

I have asthma, and significant dog allergies.  That is only for certain dogs though.  Olive is a hypo allergenic dog.  To her credit, she is much better than any previous dog my family has ever had.  However, it is still not perfect.

The first 5 days with her were bearable.  My nose stuffed up immediately, but that could have been from standing in the cold waiting for her to arrive.  The 6th day with her my lungs started to tighten up significantly.  This was unfortunate, Olive was already a loved member of the family.  

What helped it?  Air filters!

I did a lot of research online, and determined that the IQAir HealthPro Plus HEPA Air Purifier – Air Cleaner with with Gas and Odor Filter – HyperHepa Technology
was the best out there (this is not paid, just my opinion).  If you have severe allergies, please check it out.  It is very expensive (the model I was looking at was easily twice the price of comparitive models), but sounded great.

The problem was that my lungs were in distress that minute, and couldn’t wait for the air filter to be delivered.  While waiting for calls back from distributors, I went to Home Depot and picked up some items:

• 3M FAPF03 Filtrete Ultra Cleaning Filter
• Honeywell HFD-120 Tower HEPAQuiet Air Purifier with Permanent IFD Filter, Black

I’m not sure which one it really was, but the combination changed everything.  I was getting better within 15 minutes of turning the filters on.  

Within 2 days you could see the buildup of particulates on the 3M filter.  Now a week later, I’m breathing fine with the dog.  

For now I’m holding off on getting the IQ Air filter (which I think will be amazing) since I’m breathing ok now.  The sales guy I talked to about the IQ Air was actually very honest, saying that what I did could very well have eliminated my allergies.  He of course was proud of his air filter and offered an in home demo, but said I should wait to see if I really needed one.  I respect that.  If things aren’t working for you, and you are in the Northeast region check him out (let him know where you heard of him — he may be interested to know, it won’t get you a deal though):

Air Quality Solutions
79 Putname Pike #7
Johnston, RI 02919
401-231-2240 

Normally I post stories that I find interesting, or professionally relevent.  That’s not how I intend to keep this blog going.  

There will certainly be more stories from my life.

At that, I still have some posts to make about computer related topics.  They shoudl follow this post.  The next post should be about OpenDNS.

Happy Holidays to everyone, and Happy New Year!

Tags: 3m Filtrete, air filter, allergy, asthma, Dog, holiday, home depot, honeywell, iqair, Olive, Shih Tzu