So, we’re a pretty allergic-to-the-outdoors type of family. 

I was an “allergic kid”, I guess you’d call me. I didn’t have any food allergies, thank goodness, but my eyes would get swollen and itchy every time I was around any of the following: cats, dogs, dust, hay, horses, fun, outside, and woodstoves.

I mean, seriously. I would itch my eyes in a way that probably made people uncomfortable. When your eyes are itching so. incredibly. bad. that itching them for fifteen seconds is worth the half-day’s worth of looking like a prizefighter, then you know that allergies are the absolute pits.

Of course, in the genetic lottery, my children pulled the allergic card out of the barrel. First my eldest, and now my youngest, are both demonstrating the classic signs of seasonal allergies.

And it’s the pits.

Oreck send us this fancy little fella: the Dual Max Air Purifier – to try out in our home for a little while. I will admit that I was skeptical at first. How was this going to keep our air clean during some of the most pollinated times of the year?

(It’s also insanely difficult to photograph, due to the fact that it’s the blackest and shiniest thing in my living room…)

I tucked it away in our family room – the most frequently used room in the house – and let it do its thing for a while. Our allergies ebbed and flowed with the cycle of nature outside, but we did notice that there was significant relief indoors compared to outside.

Then, this little warning became apparent on the top of the purifier. The Truman Cell needed to be cleaned.

The Truman Cell is this crazy beast of a filter that lives in the Oreck Dual Max purifier. It is a permanent filter that needs to be washed in warm water and soap every thirty days. It doesn’t need to be replaced, but just requires monthly maintenance so that everything runs smoothly.

I pulled out the Truman Cell….

… and found heaps and heaps of dust! 

We have forced air in our home, which means that we do have swirls of dust happening whenever the furnace or A/C kicks on. But I didn’t think that there was this much dust swirling around in just a month!

Although, this could be been a clue. The intake for the DualMax was also coated in dust that had been removed from the air. No wonder I felt better indoors than I did outside.

If this little workhorse is going to do the work so our lungs don’t have to, I’ll take it. 

And in fact, we’ll be putting the DualMax to the test over the next couple of weeks. We’re borrowing a guinea pig to see if we may want to make one a permanent member of our family. 

Hopefully this air purifier can help to keep the dander, hair and other piggie-airborne-happenings to a minimum!

Thank you to Oreck Canada for letting us test out this Air Purifier. I swear I dust my house. This is just an efficient machine!