Cons: Hard to clean, unsure if it was doing anything to improve my air quality.
The Bottom Line: If you have a glass enclosure full of smoke that you wish to clear quickly, buy it! Consider purchasing a true HEPA filtration unit that is easier to clean
soldout2jc's Full Review: Oreck XL® Tower Air Purifier
I’ve always wondered if there was something to the idea of ionized air cleaning but I never bought off on the idea that you could effectively clean the air in an entire room, let alone your house, without some type of fan to pull the air through the filter. Because of this idea, I never purchased an Ionic Breeze (sharper image) product. This one appeared to be different because it included a high powered fan.
Back in January I was home sick with pneumonia and because I couldn’t sleep I happened across the 3am infomercial for the Oreck XL Tower. I watched as the product was demonstrated by placing it in a glass enclosure which was then filled with smoke and then completely emptied of smoke simply by turning on the Oreck XL. Impressive I thought. If it’s moving the air that effectively it surely must clean the air. I don’t know if it was delirium caused by the fever or the desire to have possible relief from seasonal allergies, but I found myself on the phone purchasing one. – Now, on to the review.
Ordering and Delivery:
Very easy to order. The phone call was 10 minutes long and they offered multiple payment arrangements. Delivery was direct to my door by UPS. The unit was packaged well. Satisfaction was guaranteed by a 60 day money back, no questions asked policy. They even provide for the shipping back to Oreck.
Setup:
Simple. Everything came pre-assembled. Simply plug it in and choose your settings
Overall Quality and Appearance:
The Oreck XL Tower appeared to be well built out of quality, durable materials. The design was quite attractive and sleek looking. The only option at this time was black. Overall height was about 3 feet tall. The base made it very stable, even on carpet.
Controls and Operation:
The controls are well designed and consist of 4 buttons on top of the tower. The control panel is angled toward the front to make it easy to see the indicator panel. The 4 buttons control the Air Revitalizer, the unit power, Turbo (fan speed) and a Night light. Powering on the unit is as simple as pressing the power button. Pressing it again will allow you to cycle through 3 different fan speeds – Silence, (quiet but slower cleaning) Medium (normal use) and High (maximum cleaning). The Turbo button takes the fan speed to a whole new level above high which is designed for really tough air cleaning situations such as a smoke filled room (or glass enclosure if you are shooting an infomercial). The air Revitalizer button turns on a function which negatively charges the ions in the air. This also causes the air to have what Oreck calls a clean scent and what I thing smells like the emissions from a laser printer. This is somewhat irrelevant anyway since it appeared to become ineffective after about a week of using it. (more later). The night light is a bright blue LED. It comes on by default and you must (and probably will) turn it off anyway.
Filtration Technology:
The Oreck has a multistage filtration design. The stages are Pre-filter, Collector cell, Oxygenator and Odor Absorber. Oreck calls the Collector cell the “Truman Cell”. The cell is easy to remove by turning 2 knobs which are clearly marked. The other filters are easy to remove as well. The Truman cell and the Prefilter are designed to be permanent. The others are replaceable.
Overall impression:
Disappointed. After a full month of use, I have experienced enough of the Oreck XL to know that I didn’t feel that it was working as well as it should and it wasn’t’ something I wanted to maintain long term. The reason? The Truman cell. This was the main reason I bought the unit and consequently the main reason I ended up returning it.
After only 2 weeks we began to hear popping noises coming from the unit which sounded like a bug zapper. Consulting the manual trouble shooting section, it describes this as an indication that the collector cell may need to be cleaned. Now, we do not smoke and do not leave the windows open often so I expected the cleaning interval to be greater than 2 weeks. I followed the directions for cleaning the unit and this was the turning point.. You have two options. You can purchase some spray that Oreck sells that is supposed to dissolve the material that has been collected and allow you to rinse it away, or soak it in water for 3 or more hours. The drawback to either of these methods is that it has to get wet. This is a problem because in more than one place, you are warned against putting the collector cell back into the unit until completely dry. Cleaning it the one time I did resulted in about 10 hours down time before I could reassemble it and begin filtering my air. Once it was reassembled, I used it 1 week before it began to pop again and the cleaning light illuminated.
Conclusion:
There are a lot of impressive things about the Oreck XL tower, but the difficulty in cleaning the main filtration collector cell is enough for me not to bother with it. I really wanted this to work, but we didn’t feel that it did what it claimed. In the time we used it, there was no noticeable difference in the air quality other than the odor that the Air Revitalizer created for the first week or so of use. Even this seemed to dissipate and was no longer noticeable after that. For the price of this unit one would hope for something a little easier to maintain. Oreck did honor their guarantee and it was easy to return.
Recommendations:
If you have a glass enclosure full of smoke that you wish to clear quickly, buy it! If you are looking for something easier to maintain consider purchasing a true HEPA filtration unit
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): $699.95 Battery Life: N/A Noise Level: Average
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