EnviroKlenz Air System Plus Review
Air Purifier Review – EnviroKlenz Air System Plus
If you are looking for an overbuilt air cleaner for your home or office you’ve come to the right place! We have a review for you today on the EnviroKlenz Air System Plus. Timilon Corporation is the parent company of EnviroKlenz. Timilon has worked with the U.S. military for over two decades handling the neutralization of toxic and noxious chemicals and odors. Air quality is a big deal and this company specializes in keeping people safe from chemical warfare and toxic industrial chemicals. EnviroKlenz was spun off to create mobile air purifiers for consumers. So, let’s take a look and see what they exactly came up with!
All EnviroKlenz air purifiers are made in the U.S.A., and their newest production facility is 50,000-square-foot facility in Topeka, Kansas. They currently have 35 people working in the production facility and have plans to hire 30 more. Right now they have two air purifiers on the market. They have a base model called the EnviroKlenz Air System that runs $699 shipped (buy on Amazon) that is rated for cleaning 1,000 square feet. You can move up from there to the EnviroKlenz Air System Plus that comes with UV lights for additional germicidal irradiation and internal cleaning of the system for $789 shipped (buy on Amazon).
The EnviroKlenz Air System Plus Review Sample
Legit Reviews was sent the EnviroKlenz Air System Plus and this has to be the Hummer of air purifiers. The Hummer was a military vehicle that was eventually sold to the public for civilian use and we can see military roots with the EnviroKlenz Air System Plus. For starters the body of the Air System Plus is all powered coated metal. This solution measures 22″ x 15.5″ x 15″ and tips the scales at 38 pounds!
All of the panels are riveted together instead of screwed and this sucker is stout. You can get it in any color you like as long as you want white or black. The powered coated finish and thick steel panels are about as tough as you can get. This was designed to last and has no soft touch features or anything to help it fit with home dcor.
The control panel on the EnviroKlenz Air System Plus allows you to turn on the fan and the UV lights separately. There are four speeds of the fan and the CFM ratings are 85, 150, 200, and 250. This model is rated for large rooms that are up to 1000 square feet at 2 air exchanges per hour. There are no ‘smart’ features on this model, so you must manually change the fan speed when needed.
Inside The EnviroKlenz Air System Plus
When you remove the EnviroKlenz Air System Plus from the shipping package you’ll have to assemble it before using it. Everything is packed inside the unit and the rear door just slides up and off. The 3-prong power cord for the wall outlet is 5-feet long and the air purifier is on wheels to make moving it around easy.
The wheels are plastic and we had no problems with them on smooth or carpeted flooring.
Clean Has No Odor says EnviroKlenz
The EnviroKlenz Air System Plus is composed of a 3-stage filtration system, including the EnviroKlenz Air Cartridge, a medical-grade HEPA filter, and UV-C lights. The EnviroKlenz Air Cartridge contains a patented earth-mineral technology that captures and neutralizes odors and VOCs (mold, pet dander, smoke, dust, etc.) from the air. This solution does not release anything back into the environment and is safe for use in homes and offices.
EnviroKlenz air cartridges capture and destroy 99.9% of harmful particulate matter and this claim was tested by 3rd party testing labs. Intertek was one of those labs and they conducted a microbial reduction rate test utilizing the EnviroKlenz Mobile Air System with UV lights. This is the model that we are looking at today. They ran the machine for 2 hours in a 1008 cubic feet room with the Phi-X174 virus that is a quarter size of the Sars-CoV-2 virus. They found a percent reduction of 99.8% of the virus.
Following the same line of testing, the reduction rates reported for bacteria (Escherichia coli) was 98.6%, for mold (Aspergillus niger) was 99.9% and for fungus (Penicillium citrinum) was 99.9%. You can find the report for this test and an actual white paper against mold-generated VOCs on their page of test results. When was the last time you saw a white paper on an air purifier?
Try To Find Some Plastic!
Here is a look inside the EnviroKlenz Air System Plus with all the filters removed and no UV lights installed.
The fan is located on the bottom of the unit and the protective fan shroud is again pop riveted down. Not much can be easily accessed on this unit so it is a good thing that is it backed by a 5-year warranty! Very few air purifiers have a 5-year warranty and they will even cover shipping fees incurred from returns for under-warranty service.
Here is a closer look at the pair of UVC bulbs that come with the EnviroKlenz Air System Plus. These UVC lamps have a wavelength of 254 nm that shines on the collection side of the HEPA filter to destroy collected organisms and provide internal cleaning of the unit.
Everything easily slid into place and there are two bolts that needed to be tightened to hold the massive 4″ thick medical-grade HEPA filter down. The top EnviroKlenz Air Cartridge adsorbs VOCs, gasses, odors, viruses and bacteria while the UV-C lamps provide additional germicidal irradiation. Then the lower HEPA filter captures harmful dust, particulate, allergens, pet dander, microorganisms, and everything else that is 0.3 microns (m) or larger.
This model brings in ‘dirty’ room air from the intakes on the top of the unit and then pulls it through the 3-stage filtration solution and then blows clean air out the lower front exhaust ports. The stamped metal housing directs the airflow from the lower slows upwards.
How Much Do Replacement Filters Cost?
The top 14x14x1 EnviroKlenz Air Cartridge runs $99 and it is recommended that you replace it every 6 months. The UVC bulbs run $40 and should last 18-24 months. The 14x14x4 HEPA filter only needs to be replaced every two years and runs $150. EnviroKlenz offers a free auto refill subscription program that gives subscribers a 20% discount on said items.
1st Year Total Cost of Ownership?
If you sign up for the filter subscription program you are looking at $868.99. This is based off the purchase price of the unit ($789) and the price of a single EnviroKlenz Air Cartridge ($79.99).
One thing that the EnviroKlenz Air System Plus lacks is a function to turn off the control panel lights. The power button turns on once the unit is plugged into the wall outlet. So, even if you aren’t using the air purifier you have this bright orange light illuminating the room. The green UV1/UV2 lights will not glow green when the UV-C lamps need to be replaced.
This might not be a big deal for a dentist office, school or somewhere that you work, but it does matter for home users. If EnviroKlenz ever refreshed this series it would be nice to see an on/off switch added that includes this functionality.
How Much Power Does The EnviroKlenz Air System Plus Use?
When it comes to power consumption at the wall outlet we found that it used 0.2 Watts turned off, 43.5 Watts on the lowest speed and 82 Watts at its highest speed. Turning on the UV lights added just over 22 Watts of power draw, so that increased the lowest fan speed power draw to 65.7 Watts and 104 Watts on the highest.
If your electric costs 13 cents per kilowatt-hour you are looking at an annual expense of $74.87 per year ($6.24 per month) on low and $118.52 per year ($9.88 per month) on high with 24/7 use. We calculated cost with the UV bulbs on as that is a key feature of the ‘Plus’ model that we are reviewing.
How Loud Is the EnviroKlenz Air System Plus?
When it comes to sound levels, the EnviroKlenz Air System Plus is rated at 54dBA for whisper mode and 62dBA on High in the specifications. They don’t mention what distance they tested at, so we did our own testing at a distance of 5-feet with our sound meter facing the front of the air purifier.
Whisper mode was 40.5 dBA at that distance and high was 61.3 dBA. The fan noise from the unit isn’t bad, but you can hear it over the background noise of most homes even over 10 feet away on anything other than whipser mode. Doctor offices, schools or regular offices are usually nosier and it likely won’t be noticed much.
Final Thoughts and Conclusions
The EnviroKlenz Air System Plus is one of the most well built air purifiers that we have ever seen thanks to the full metal body construction. It also happens to be one of the very few air purifiers on the market that is made by a company that has taken the time to publish white papers and testing reports from well known labs.
EnviroKlenz’s parent company makes products for the military, so they are used to building things to military standards and showing actual data to back up any claims that they make! This of course adds costs and is one of the reasons that this model runs $789 shipped over on Amazon. The good news is that it is American made, so you are supporting local US jobs and it comes backed by a 5-year warranty.
This is likely one of the best large room air cleaners on the market. It made a noticeable improvement in our home air quality and just in time for allergy season to hit. Yes, it is big and ugly, but we like the device that our friends and neighbors affectionally call the living room refrigerator. You can find out more about this air purifier on its product page.
Legit Bottom Line: The EnviroKlenz Air System Plus is an impressive air purifier that hits a grand slam on the cleaning aspect, but missed the ball on the visual product design for residential use.