Trane Clean Air Effects...
 

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

Trane Clean Air Effects...
 

You may have been better off to have gotten a whole house powered HEPA
filter. These install into the return air path of the furnace, and can
be set to run like this Trane. They filter either part of the air
stream, or the whole air stream, up to 1200CFM. They use the same ECM
motor as most furnaces, so they can be synchronized to run the same air
flow rates as the furnace.

Failing this investment (it isn't cheap), a much more economic solution
is to use higher surface area filters. It helps to change out the
filter holder to allow for 2" or 4" deep filters. These deeper filters
DO NOT filter better than the good 1" filters. Their advantage is a less
frequent change interval. MERV11 filters in a 1" deep filter probably
need to be changed every 6 weeks. For the same MERV rating, the deeper
filters extend the change interval before they load up with dirt enough
to cause the fan in the furnace to suffer.

And if you have a 20x20x1, or 20x24x1, or 24x24x1 filter holder on this
furnace, you can use the commercial bag filters. MERV11 with 30 or more
square feet of filter media, they cost about the same as a premium MERV
11 1" filter, but only need to be changed once or twice a year.

Non-entity wrote:
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

Trane Clean Air Effects...
 

One thing your Ionic breesses do well it output ozone, o3, Google
Ozones harmfull effects, if those units are very close to you it might
be an issue, second hand smoke is now a proven concern.

Over possible future liability concerns Sharper Image has put on a
catylist to convert lung damaging O3 to Oxygen, but a simple look at the
design will point out likely 60% of the O3 air does not go through them.
Junk your ionic breeses they don`t do enough anyway. For a full review
of air filters look at Consumers Reports testing, and the lawsuit they
won againt Sharper Images Ionic breese..

Trane Clean Air Effects...
 

Non-entity wrote:
....

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.
....

Have one of those still and can attest to the significant difference in
visible dust motes and in obvious improvement in my mother's allergies
that they are quite effective for dust and pollen allergens. Don't
know about actual measured by particle size efficiencies, but if whole
house (as other respondent notes) and run, I'm convinced they are very
effective for that purpose. Whether that's what is needed for your
mother's best improvement is another question.

--db in sw ks

Trane Clean Air Effects...
 

"dpb" wrote in message
ups.com...

Non-entity wrote:
...

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.
...

Have one of those still and can attest to the significant difference in
visible dust motes and in obvious improvement in my mother's allergies
that they are quite effective for dust and pollen allergens. Don't
know about actual measured by particle size efficiencies, but if whole
house (as other respondent notes) and run, I'm convinced they are very
effective for that purpose. Whether that's what is needed for your
mother's best improvement is another question.

--db in sw ks


I'm not making a judgement on the Clean Air Effects as a whole, yet. Right
now I kind of "trust" (gulp) that it's a good design and performs well. My
mother's lungs can't get better, but perhaps she can be more comfortable if
the air quality is a bit better - especially with the two @#$% cats. I just
moved to KC six months ago and notice there seems to be more "stuff" in the
air in general, too - I'm used to the mid atlantic reigon where there isn't
much wind - there is lots of pollen, though, at certain times of the year.
The cat dander and dust really bothers me as well. As far as medical
advice, well, her doctors say the same thing my doctor says - "might help,
might not." It does seem there is more dust in the air here than I'm used
to (used to live in the mid-atlantic reigon) and I notice a lot more wind
here, so I was looking for at least a bit of improvement.

My biggest concern here is, have I bought an expensive air filter that can't
be practically cleaned? I've seen some messages discussing this model that
suggest the final filter might only last two years or so. If so I hope
Trane doesn't have replacement "honeycomb" filters - I thought, perhaps
incorrectly, that I was getting rid of perpetual filter expense with this
unit. The instructions seem to have been written to be very vague about
cleaning. I can always carefully clean the pre-filter, I'm used to that,
but the filter AFTER the ionizer seems to be a mystery! The instructions
say to clean the honeycomb filter with a "vacuum, preferably outdoors."
Water, as from a sink dish-sprayer, if absolutely necessary, and at the
most - WARM water.

As I had written before, this house USED to have a Honeywell electronic air
cleaner, then replaced with an earlier Trane (I think). This is the third,
expensive attempt. With recently replaced windows, hence a tighter house,
hopefully the Trane Air Effects will be of some help. The design of this
filter seems good, with the ionizer needle array, but I just don't know how
that final filter is going to get cleaned. Magic :\{ ??

Thanks, KC Bill