Trane's "whole house" air cleaner (well, sorta, when the house fan is set to
"on" instead of auto, or the heating or cooling causes the furnace fan to
run, the filter "runs").

I had it installed week before last thinking it might be a real good thing,
my elderly mother has a serious lung condition and is on oxygen 24/7, and I
moved out here recently and immediately began having lots of problems with
allergy-type things so thought this might be a help. She already had two
"Ironic" Breezes (which IMHO do "almost nothing") but I had read an ad of
this Trane unit actually doing something. She has two cats, that is
probably 99% of the problem, but I thought this filter might help with that.

My question is about the final filter - described as hundreds of tiny straws
clustered together. It seems insulting to spend huge sums on a good filter,
only to be left with real doubts about it, maybe I'm just being ignorant.
There were electronic filters before, they performed very poorly (they arced
more than they cleaned anything, and I'm convinced they let an awful lot of
large particles go on through, and some of the techs have told me the gaps
between the collector plates and ionizing wires were so big a lot DID get
through). This Trane unit is supposed to be better.

The final filter, which I'd think is supposed to do what the plates would do
on an older filter with ionizing wires (this uses needles instead) is said
to be cleanable by "vacuuming (preferred) or washing with a gentle spray,
even going so far as to using warm water if tobacco smoke made the element
difficult to clean."

At least it says to do the vacuuming outside, I do have HEPA bags on the
vacuum cleaners, but then again, there has to be a better way. Filters I've
had in the past with collector plates are very reluctant to "give up" the
dirt accumulated, and you had to be very careful to clean, but not damage,
the ionizing wires, I used Q-tips and alcohol. On this unit, the "charging"
plate with the needles is supposed to be cleaned only by a professional and
the technicians told me they plan to use styrofoam "sticks" to clean the
needles.

But that final "hundreds of straws" white final filter that must be to catch
fine particulates - such vague cleaning instructions make me wonder how
cleanable it is - and how durable it is. The instructions do recommend
cleaning both halves outdoors (real brainstorm there) but the only thing to
clean it with is water, if need be, but vacuuming only is recommended. Is
this really going to be enough and does this mean this plastic filter
element is going to last a long time? This was an expensive venture, I hope
so... thanks for any advice.

Bill in KC