See larger image Honeywell Quiet Clean Air Purifier ()

• Washable reusable filter means no filters to buy

• A high volume tower design

• Several models to choose from

The Honeywell QuietClean line of air purifiers come in a good handful off different sizes, with your usual choice of feature options. However; rather than focusing on each specific model, I'll focus on the line as a whole because there are a few things that make these air purifiers unique.

What Makes the Honeywell QuietClean So Different?

The first item worth making note of, is that they are all your classic tower design. It's a vary popular design style because they take up very little floor space and are in fact quite attractive to look at. Even so, almost without exception, all tower air purifiers are ionic air cleaners.

Small & inexpensive compact model

A Non Ionic Tower Air Purifier

That is that they don't use a standard filter. Ionic air cleaners use static electricity to attract air particles to a set of metal plates that then have to be wiped or washed off. So then whats so different about the Honeywell QuietClean filter system?

They Use a Standard Non Hepa Filter

Whats different is that these aren't ionic air purifiers. Instead they use a standard non hepa filter to screen the particles from the air that pass through them. You see ionic air cleaners, particularly the smaller models simply lack the ability to process large volumes of air.

Smaller Size With a Larger Air Volume

So you get the benefits of a smaller inexpensive tower unit, with the secondary benefit of a larger volume of air being processed than an ionic unit of the same size would handle. So then whats the catch? The catch is that these unique tower models don't use hepa filters.

They Capture 99% - Not 99.97%

Instead they use a standard washable filter to capture air particles. Even so they do capture 99% of the dust and pollen that pass through them, compered to 99.99% of the particles that a standard hepa filter will capture. Just the same, you have to be very careful when reading the numbers that are provided for these units.

Be Careful When Reading the Numbers

For instance, the main company website for the Honeywell QuietClean line boasts that these filters will capture all air particles down to 1.0 micron. Does that number sound familiar? Well be very careful because one decimal point can make huge difference.

What a Difference a Little Decimal Point Makes!

Don't confuse 1.0 microns with 0.1 microns, which is the particle size that the best air purifiers on the market capture. You see 0.1 micron is actually one-tenth the size of 1.0 microns. Also the CADR numbers for all these Honeywell towers are extremely low as well.