Aprilaire 5000 Owner's Manual page 3

PERFORMANCE
A whole-house air cleaner, like the Aprilaire model 5000 is
installed by your heating and air conditioning contractor as one
of the components in your heating and cooling system. It cleans
the air that circulates through your home (see Figure 1).
When the heating or cooling equipment turns on, the air in
your home travels through the registers and return duct(s) to
the heating and cooling equipment where it is conditioned
and sent back into the rooms of your house through the supply
ducts. Small particles from numerous sources are suspended
in your home's air, just as they are suspended in the air
outdoors. The largest of these particles will eventually come
to rest and appear as dust. Smaller particles may come to rest,
but with even the slightest disturbance will re-suspend into
the air. These particles are very small, and come from natural
sources such as dust and pollen and from manmade sources
such as tobacco smoke or exhaust. The air cleaner is installed
on or near the furnace/air handler and removes the particles
that travel with the air that circulates through your heating
and cooling system. Removing these particles keeps the
equipment components clean and more importantly removes
particles from the air you breathe. Particles are measured in
microns, which is a unit of measure used for very small things
(1 micron = 1/25,400 inch). For reference, the diameter of a
human hair is approximately 100 microns. Figure 2 shows the
size of various particles that can be found in the air.
Your Aprilaire Electronic Air Cleaner will remove over 90%
of particles the same size as many disease-causing airborne
bacteria, and is 80% efficient at removing virus-size particles.
Until now, the air cleaner has been a passive component of
your heating and cooling system; when the equipment turned
on to heat or cool your home, the air cleaner was doing its job
whether you were aware of it or not. Your thermostat turns on
your heating and cooling equipment and so, essentially, the
thermostat determined when you clean your air. Your model
5000 air cleaner comes with an exclusive Air Cleaner Control
that allows you to clean your air when you want! Not only
does the Air Cleaner Control allow you to actively clean the
air, it will show you when the air cleaner is filtering the air
and when it is time to change the filter.
FIGURE 1
FIGURE 2
Common Pollutants
*
Particle sizes in microns
(1 micron = 1/25,400 inch)
0.01 0.1 1
SMUDGING
SMOKE
AIRBORNE BACTERIA
*American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineering Guide
5 10 50
POLLENS & SPORES
DUST
100
90-1148
3