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