Customer Reviews

Blueair 501 Air Purification System

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have tried many types of purifiers over the years. My allergies would always lay me out and severely impact my quality of life. After becoming disillusioned by the Honeywell HEPAs and the Orek (eegads never buy the Orek!!!!!) I started a very detailed research project.

Consistently, the BlueAir purifiers were at the top of every review and recommendation list. The only things beating them out were either attached to a house (I live in an apartment) or over $800. While the BlueAir itself is not cheap, I decided that my health was not worth saving the few hundred dollars another Honeywell would save me.

It was the best $500 I ever spent.

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!

The unit has 4 speed settings, the lowest being called "HEPASilent" which is barely audible, and the highest being much too loud to use during sleep. I find the 3rd setting to be the best performance to noise ratio. I can sleep perfectly fine at this level and I am a fairly light sleeper.

The unit can be heavy for lifting purposes, but comes on casters so you can easily wheel it around to different rooms.

If I had any gripes about this purifier, it would be the lack of a pre-filter. The unit essentially sucks air from the bottom and shoots it out the top, front, and back. Dust accumulates on the metal housing frame and must be cleaned during each filter change. Cleaning the housing can be a tad difficult unless you have a very slender vacuum hose.

The other potentially annoying thing is the fairly bright blue power light on the side. I hardly even notice it after over a year of use.

I bought three of these for our townhouse - 1 for each level. We have 27 windows in this house (at least) and the dust is unbelievable! At first when I plugged in these purifiers I wasn't sure I noticed any difference so I did a test. 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. We've had these now for about 2 years and I think they're great! I'm glad we went with this model. After 6 months just look at your filters - it's amazing how much dirt this machine takes in.

I bought this unit last year. It does a good job of eliminating the dust. The owners manual says to replace the filters every six months. When I first read that, I thought that was just a tactic to make more money. After six months I checked them, and they needed to be replaced. With new filters, I turned it up to the next higher speed, and within three months they were dirty. The filters are not cheap (other brands aren't either), but that's the price I have to pay for cleaner air.

This unit has four speeds. On one and two, it's almost silent. On speed three you can hear it, but it's not objectionable. I leave it on that one all the time. The highest setting is too loud.

The unit uses electostatic technology, and at first the air seemed to have an unusual quality, like being at a high altitude. But after about a month I got used to it, and now I would never turn it off.

The only objection I have to this and most of the low to moderate priced home air purifiers is they don't adequately eliminate gases and/or odors. But as far as overall performance, this does a good job.

It's been on since I opened it up about 4 months ago for the twins. Max setting is a bit loud but then again it has to move a lot of air so I can't imagine it being any less quiet. Anything below max is rather quiet. Wish it had some type of sensor or the ability to dim that blue active on light it has. But other then that it's really a simple box. It has a fan in the middle, 3 filters and just goes and goes. Almost feel like the fan should be reversed and the filters too. It draws air from below and filters within so I'd imagine the insides will get very dirty at some point. You'll know what I mean when you get it.

We've got dark brown wood floors, and it seems that the place was showing dust pretty much after 2 days, since the dust was light, and the floor was dark. We see less dust now, and according to my spouse, my snoring is apparently not as window-rattling as it was. I can't say that this cleaner is to credit, though...could also be the time of year and my diet changes.

My wife was really worried about noise...we'd had some panasonic filters before, which were relatively quiet, but we're now running this one full-time on position 3 out of 4, and really don't notice the sound at all. In fact, on all but the max power of this system, it's very quiet...And I wouldn't consider running this on max except under extraordinary conditions.

This unit is sorta big, but we've got it behind a chair, so that you really can't see it from anywhere but next to that chair.

It doesn't have as many features as some others, like sensors to determine when to increase airflow, etc, but really, is that a useful feature or a geeky one?

It coulda got more stars from me if it was cheaper or more compact, but I may buy another (smaller) one for the bedroom as well.

"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. We use it on level 2 at night in the bedroom and level 3 during the daytime. Seldom go to level 4, but even when we do, the sound level is quite acceptable. Filtration is great, though we have not yet used it through the Spring allergy season.

I bought this unit 3 years ago for my son who suffers severe allergies during spring/fall season. I did my research and found out that Blueair is top of the list for it's function despite the cost. It has four levels to the switch and first one is HEPA-Silent which you don't hear. Second level is also very quiet. Third level sounds like quiet fan (white noise) and last one is very loud and I only turn it on when I'm vacuuming the house. The filters are quit expensive and need to be replaced every 6 months. But when you take out the old filter, you don't regret buying this machine because the filter which used to be white has turn to almost charcoal grey/black color. Also, I think you need to suck up dust from the machine's internal side now and then to make sure that the machine works properly. Because first six-months I did nothing and when I opened the machine to replace filter, it was caked with dust inside. So now I open up and clean inside with powerful vacuum evern two months to prevent dust build up.
I'm actually looking into buying another one for bedroom. And I know the maintenece cost will double but I totally think it's worth it.

Eliminates odors from cooking, smoking, even painting!
For smokers, do use special Smoke Stop filters and keep it on high setting.

I bought this from all the hype from consumer reports (This is the 501 model, not the 401). At first it seemed to get rid of 95% of pollutants (dust, etc) in the room at which it was placed... after a long while, it dropped to 80% or so. After I replaced the filter, it went back up to 90 to 95%... I found out that the outgoing (or is it incoming) vents actually get dirty with dust and have to be cleaned ocassionally to maximize the effect and efficiency of the device. Who knows if the internal components also get dusty degrading the device as well (I suspect that it does to some extent, even if the particles are small). Too bad there was nothing about that in the instruction manual. The cost of replacing filters gets too expensive in the long run in my opinion. True, it has helped with breathing, caughing, etc..., but next time I think I'll just get me something akin to the models that allow you to clean the filters without actually buying them - even if they aren't as good. I can buy 2 of them with the money saved in the long run instead of just one of these units. It might not be as effective - but in the big picture of things, if you don't have allergies, then it really doesn't make sense to get this. And if you do - you probably need something more expensive anyway. About the only real plus I can say is that this thing really looks good and is much better than ozone generators that I've used to clean air in the past and at least it does work to some extent (unlike products that are in my opinion waste of money - like most ozone generators that are used to clean air).

When choosing an air cleaner, one must consider what will be filtered.

Since my main concern was dust, after much research, I decided to go with the Blue Air 501 upon the recommendation of Allergy Buyers Club.

I purchased this device around 2001 or so and have used it on and off from that time until the present.

I find that it really does suck in dust well. It has performed well during normal living and also in the midst of a dust laden home renovation.

This air cleaner would also give me relief from seasonal allergies before I figured out I needed to take probiotics 2 months prior to the start of allergy season, it would help during the times that I slipped up and did not take those precautions.

Because I we use a laser printer in our home office, I make sure that it is running on HIGH before we print a page.

You can barely hear the motor on the low setting but you will be sure to hear it on the high.

When we used to live in an apartment, I used to run the machine in whatever room I was dusting at the time so that I would not have to wear a mask. I certainly did not cough that much when I did this, as I don't have very good reactions to breathing dust.

The blue light is irritating if you have this machine in a darkened room. I ended up taping over it during the time I had it in our bedroom, which was when we first got it.

This air cleaner does NOT filter VOCs, formaldehyde, and the like, but what it does, which is dust, it does well.

The filters are rather expensive at about $80 and must be replaced every 6 months in order to maintain the warranty.

I give it a four star rating because the filters are very expensive AND it does not filter VOCs. For a filter this expensive, that would have been nice, especially given that much of indoor air pollution is due to VOCs. However, I am still satisfied.