The Oreck Air Purifiers Scam
Bending the Truth to Sell Shabby Oreck Air Purifiers...
The Oreck air purifiers line (now called "Oreck XL Professional Air Purifier"...ooh, fancy!) pumps out slick marketing to hide big problems and worthless design with their air purifiers. At $370 for a tabletop Oreck and an absolutely ridiculous $600 for the tower version, you'd be much better off with my top pick, the Blueair, or the more economical Austin Air...
How Oreck Deliberately Tries to Mislead...
On Oreck's website, they start out by claiming that their air purifier
"..removes harmful particles as small as 0.1 microns...In contrast, HEPA filters only capture particles as small as 0.3 microns..."
This is factually misleading...
What they don't tell you is that a true HEPA air purifier removes 99.7% of those .3 micron particles. In contrast, the "collector plates" on a Oreck air purifier does not 
catch 99.7% of the .3 micron particles and it darn well does not catch 99.7% of the .1 micron particles.
As I explain in my ionic air purifiers article, collector plates, such as those in the Oreck air cleaner, let many, many of those particles through.
That would be like an outfielder bragging that they catch a line drive every now and again but drop half of the fly balls that come their way...
Furthermore, another claim is that an Oreck air filter has "Six stages of filtration." This, I suppose, is to make one think "Wow! Six stages of filtration! I don't know any other air purifier that has that many!"
This is also misleading. They count the particle charging wires and the "truman cell collector plates" as two different stages. It is one, and one ineffective one at that. The oxygenator (stage 4) is an add-on that, yes, does filter out ozone.
But it's filtering out the ozone that the machine itself made in the the charging wires! Finally, the "air revitalizer" is simply an ionic charger, not a filter.
So much for six stages...
The Naked Truth About Oreck Air Purifiers...
What you basically get in an oreck air purifier is...
- a prefilter
- an ionic collector plates that don't work very well
- a very measly carbon filter that needs to be replaced frequently at $45 a crack
- an anti-ozone attachment (who knows how well it works)
- an air ionzier
...that all adds up to a sub-standard air purifier and subtracts money from your wallet.
Lastly, the anecdotal reports tell of frequent "loud popping noises" and frequent breakdowns.
I hope you don't need another reason to stay away from Oreck XL professional air purifiers/cleaners...
Summary:
- Simply Ineffective as an air purifier
- Misleading statements about performance
- Expensive, with expensive replacements
- Many consumer complaints
Friends, I have many other recommended air purifiers that far outweigh the Oreck air purifiers. Don't believe the hype:
Check out our top 10 air purifiers or best air purifier pages for a real head start. In this price range, I'd highly recommend the Blueair or Austin Air...
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