I regularly have customers ask me about how effective a smoke eater can be for removing cigar smoke in their cigar bars, country clubs, lounges or retail outlets where they allow cigar smoking. Many question if a smoke eater unit can be effective enough to remove the smoke and odors to an acceptable level. Some have even commented that they have witnessed systems that do not perform up to par.

An important thing to remember, when you are selecting a smoke removal system for cigar smoke, is that cigar smoke is much more concentrated than cigarette smoke. Cigar smoke contains more particles and more chemical fumes and VOCs (Volitile Organic Compounds) than cigarette smoke.

There are two main things to consider when dealing with cigar smoke:

1. Choosing the Right Smoke Removal Technology

While electrostatic air cleaners work very well for cigarette smoke, most electrostatic units lack enough gas phase media to effectively remove the fumes and odors from cigar smoke. I always recomend a media based air cleaning system or at least a system with several pounds of granulated activated carbon and potassium permanganate.

The Everclear Deluxe HEPA Air Cleaner for example, has 44 pounds of gas phase media blend that is specially formulated to deal with heavy tobaco smoke. Some electrostatic units, such as the SE50 and Smokeeter LS systems do boast a decent ammount of granulated activated carbon, which can help reduce odors and exposure to toxic chemical fumes. Make sure to check and see that there are several pounds before selecting a model.

Many smoke eaters will advertise that they have carbon, some are merely a few grams of carbon embedded into a foam pad, this will not be enough to get the job done!

2. Properly Sizing the Smoke Removal System

Airflow is very important; the best unit in the world will not be effective if it is not delivering enough airflow. I would suggest a little overkill when dealing with cigar or pipe smoke. We use a formula to determine how many CFM (cubic feet per minute) are needed based on the volume of air in a particular establishment.

To do this, first figure out the total volume of air:

length X width X height = cubic feet of air

Next, divide the total cubic feet by 60 (as in 60 minutes in an hour)

The answer is how many CFM are require to do one complete air exchange.

For cigar smoke we like to achieve between 14 and 20 air exchanges per hour, depending on how many smokers and the desired results.

Multiply the number of desired air exchanges per hour, this will be the number of CFM you will need from your smoke eaters.

Below I give an example using a 25′ X 25′ room with 10′ ceilings. I want to achieve 16 air exchanges per hour to deal with my average of 4-5 smokers at a time:

25X25X10= 6,250 cubic feet
6250/60 = 104.167 cfm for one air exchange

104.167 X 16 = 1666.667 CFM

So I will need about 1667 CFM to deal with my smoke problem.