We were reading one of the Hairy Maclary books a few nights ago and the word ‘cacophony’ came up and A asked me what a cacophony was. Good question. Well it is a mixture of lots of different noises that don’t really go together. I tried to think of an example and sneezing came immediately to mind. A cacophony of sneezing can often be heard in our house. Especially at this time of year.
We are a house of allergies. Hay fever. Check. House dust mite allergies. Check. Animal allergies. Check. Add a few colds to the mix and you can imagine that there is pretty much always someone sniffing and sneezing away somewhere and I am forever buying tissues and currently we we are all starting our day with a good dose of antihistamine.
I am always looking for anything that might help. The house dust mite allergy is particularly tricky. I have done what I can to eliminate them as much as possible; bought anti-allergy bedding, a Hoover with an allergy and HEPA filter and generally keeping his bedroom as clean and as dust free as possible. Sometimes, it can feel like an endless struggle and then when I watch him struggling for breath and constantly sneezing at night, I wish that there was more that I could do. It isn’t life threatening but for most of his life, it has affected his sleeping.
One of my favourite website is allergyuk.org which is an amazing resource for all things allergy related and they list lots of products that are useful in the fight against allergies and one of the recommendations is an air purifier and it is something that I did consider buying this time last year. A few weeks ago we were sent a Fellowes Aeramax DX95 air purifier to review. The Aeramax range has been designed to actively reduce the number of airborne particles that can affect health and well-being. It is a very sleek looking machine and doesn’t take up a lot of space. I pondered about where to try it and decided as the boys suffer the most with allergies to set it up in their bedroom.
It is ridiculously easy to set up and use and the instructions are really easy to follow. You quite literally unpack the air purifier, remove the plastic covering from the filters and plug it in. Once turned on, the Aeramax DX95 has a touch screen display panel and you can choose to have it on AUTO where the purifier monitors the air quality in the room and adjusts the fan speed accordingly or AERA+ mode which is designed for peak allergy season. The AERA+ mode increases the air turnover rate by 50%. It is so simple to adjust and you can also touch the fan icon to manually adjust the fan, which is useful at night when the children go to bed. The fan has four speeds.
The air purifier is really quiet on the lowest setting which is really good as the boys have very quickly got used to having it gently whirring away during the night, which is the key time to have it on in their room. It is equipped with an air quality sensor; the AeraSmart sensor, which controls the fan speed when switched to auto and a circular light on the control panel lights either blue, amber or red to show the current air quality. I did have to explain this to the boys as L in particular panicked when the circle turned red.
In terms of maintenance, the HEPA filter will need replacing yearly and the Carbon filter every three months and there are indicators to show you when they need replacing. I have checked online and the filters are widely available.
I have had the Aeramax DX95 on pretty much constantly over the last three weeks as it is peak allergy system and I have to say that I am impressed. The room is cool and clear when you go in and if I do something like change the beds, it is fascinating to watch the sensor react to the dust and the fan speed increases to deal with it. Has it improved the allergies? There has been a definite improvement. R in particular has been sneezing a sniffing a lot less. L is trickier as the house dust mites are harder to control, however we have also seen a real reduction in his sneezing and sniffing too.
I wish I had bought one sooner. Having done some research online, I think that I won’t continue to have the air purifier on all of the time as it doesn’t seem necessary. I will start to put it on an hour before the boys go to bed and then keep it on low during the night and reassess once the peak allergy season is over. At around £230 this is a significant investment to make but there are different models to suit different size spaces. I am really glad to finally have one and I would definitely recommend one if you or your children have allergies. Find out more about the Fellowes Aeramax DX95 Air Purifer and other purifiers from Fellowes here.
I was sent a Fellowes Aeramaz DX95 for the purpose of this review. All opinions are my own.
