one for you old timers?

[spacebluesonoma]

hi

my wife and i just bought an older home from someone and the furnace has something that i am not familiar with at all. it is a honeywell electronic air cleaner. looks like model f50A.B?

there were 2 metal cartridges sitting next to it, but it has a standard furnace filter in it and it is turned off. which is better the filter or using this thing? how do i get it going? will i notice a difference?

thanks guys and girls

ed

[snakbyte]

Sounds like a old Honeywell electronic air filter ionizer type I think, sometimes a little noisy popping sound when the dust hit the cellsnot maint. free. Goodluck [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[Tinner]

The honeywell electronics can be a real pain, a lot of the time all you hear is snapping and popping, what I recomend to my customers is to take the electronic cells out(the wide and the skinny pre-filters) and replace with the correct size media filter, most common size that I usually encounter is 16 tall 25 long and they are all 4" wide media's. other sizes are 16x20, 20x20, and 20x25 measure yours first. The media filter in my opinion filters better and no noise

[spacebluesonoma]

BUT by doing this, doesnt that defeat the purpose of the electronic air cleaner?

[Tinner]

To me the pourpose of an electronic air cleaner is pointless, trust me you will enjoy the media filter much better

[spacebluesonoma]

fair enough. that is actually what i have in the unit now. had a friend tell me that the cells work better than the filter so i thought i would try to get it going

[dj]

The new 4" pleated filter media is as good or better than most electronic air cleaners and in most cases you only have to change it once a year (or longer).

[tomgeer]

he's correct, as the media filter starts getting dirty it works better. Sort of a klimbing scale. the electronic filter works less as it gets dirty and requirs more cleaning. If you're still hooked on the electronic idea, look into the Lennox pure air filtration system or the April Air 5000.

[proplumb]

elctronic air cleaners do work well for those who are diligent in filter cleaning. the biggest issue is that once the cells have debre on them they dont charge the particals anymore. i have seen filters do this in 2 days in older homes. the cells are very sharp and fragile so you need to be very careful when cleaning. bent overs will cause a short in the cell rendering them useless. servicing cells are colstly and hard to find a qualified tech to do so. carrier has 1 tech for western canada! go pleated media or if you have allergies really bad the new halogen uv lights are amazing they will even eat odour and are the only maintenence free filter out there. the bulb has a 3 year life time and is about 300 to replace