OK. Time to buy my yearly supply of filters. Had my purifier for many years. Loved it. UNTIL NOW. The filters arrived. No box. Just celaphaned flat filters/prefilters labelled "RFPC55". Trouble was, the filter looked NOTHING and I repeat NOTHING like the Slant/Fin filter combo I have used for many years. This Filters-Now Company claimed the filters they sent me were superior to the Slant/Fin replacement filters I ordered.Differences included:
1. no foam sleeve for the filter.
2. Slant/Fin filter is porous flexible filter (similar to my vacuum's pre-hepa filter)encased in a porous foam sleeve. It is made by 3M and called Filtrete. The Filters-Now "replacement" filter has some sort of multi strand fiber material glued or burned to each side of the flexible filter (instead of encasing the filter entirely in a foam sleeve); this means the filter is exposed on all edges and the filter is very hard. I wondered if there are any gas off effects to be considered with these replacement filters. Also wondered how glue or burning this strand stuff to the filter affects the ability of the filter to actually process air.
3. The Slant/Fin prefilter has a super fine micro-perforated pellon like sleevereminds me of the outer casement of a breathable medical gauze pad. The inside looks like fine layers of cottonnot glued at all-think loose cotton ball material laid very flat. It has some sort of activated carbon properties to it. The Filters-Now prefilter appears to be only a single layer of some sort of denser cotton like materialreminds me of batting, close to a 1/16th of an inch thick, perforated on one side (I did not take it out of its celaphane wrapper, as it will be returned shortly). I see no carbon activated material at all.
4. Both are too small. The width is 1/4 inch too small and the length is between a 1/2 and 5/8 inch too small. I believe the reason for the difference was the substitution of the glued or burned on fiber strand stuff instead of the foam sleeve used by Slant/Fin (or whoever made their replacement filters)and the omission of the pellon sleeve on the prefilter. Of course that is just a guess. Regardless of the why, the directions for the Slant/Fin replacement filters found on the box say this -
"Install new filters in housing. Install with white filter inside; foam filter covers white filter. Be sure both ends form a proper seal to prevent air from bypassing filter". The Slant/Fin replacements fit tight! These Filters-Now filters had no instructions, no box, and by their own design create bypassing areas. I had to ask myself What sort of air will result? Could ill-fitting filters possibly create a shorter life for the device overall?
I phoned Filters-Now as soon as I opened this package and saw they were completely different from what I expected! They claimed their filters are "superior" to Slant/Fin's. They also claimed Slant/Fin "went out of business". According to Slant/Fin, they did NOT go out of business; they SOLD this particular air purifier business to KAZ USA INC. KAZ claims they will be making filters for this purifier but they do not have a firm production schedule yet. They guessimated it would be three months. I have no idea how long ago Slant Fin sold this purifier business.
In my book, if something doesn't fit properly, I can't count it as "superior". What I can't quite figure out is why this company did not immediately offer for UPS to pick their stuff up and provide me with a credit for the entire amount, including shipping! I hope this is not going to get ugly. After all, clearly I ordered in good faith. For heavens sake, the Amazon page has a photo of the same Slant/Fin replacement filter box I have ordered before! Nowhere does the description alert a customer that the item will differ from the photo'd item! I am awaiting a phone call tomorrow from this company.
For the record, the only thing I found superior was Filters-Now unit price!
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