Comments on: Cigar Smoke Removal

By: John Randazzo

John Randazzo — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 02:09:42 +0000

This site is great !!! I have a question. My local cigar lounge has two White-Rogers ECD-1500W electronic air cleaners installed, one on each of two floors (the lower level is a 18′x25′ space and the upstairs only slightly larger). For the life of me, I don’t think these things work very well or perhaps weren’t installed correctly. I find my eyes tear to the point of nearly closing when there are more than 5 or 6 smokers on either floor I’m on at the time. Reading some of your material on the operation of electronic vs. carbon filtering I’m wondering are these the right types of units for a cigar lounge ? The theory of op seems to me flawed as the air cannot circulate as prescirbed (out all four sides along the ceiling causing an intake up the unit’s body after ciruclatiing the room) due to obstructions (the walls are lined with humidors on level 1 and upstairs the unit is not mounted in the center of the room due to situation of an existing skylight.

Rather than ramble, I’d like to know your thoughts on air cleaners vs smoke eaters in the setting of a cigar lounge.

thanks in advance…
John R.

By: randy keller

randy keller — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 01:57:19 +0000

i have a room that is 21 by 12 and 7 feet high. area for about 4 cigar smokers, i looking for a unit that could be placed in a window or stand alone.. and approx price thats Randy

By: bryan

bryan — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:30:14 +0000

im going to build a poker room in my basement about 14 x 20 feet 9 foot ceiling and i want a smoke eater to remove cigar smoke for 12 people if needed i would like to use fresh air and exhaust to outside also room will be ceiled up fairly well to keep as much smoke from going threw home any ideas

By: Michael Gersh

Michael Gersh — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 02:03:42 +0000

One thing about the cfm calculation. No smoke eater will have 100% efficiency in air flow. While your calculation in this post shows that two units will clear the 1650 cf 16 times, to actually get 16 clearances you would actually need closer to three units. Now, I am sure that experience shows that two units will clear the test room, the calculation makes an assumption that will always result in overly optimistic results.

If you have, say, a 500 cf room, and let’s say a 500 cfm smoke eater, while you will run 500 cf of air through the unit each minute, some of the air will run through twice, while some will not get from the lower corners to the unit in that minute. That bit of air might get to the unit in the second minute, but the filtered bit will have settled into the corner, and will take another minute of two to get back to the unit. Thus some air will be filtered a few times while some smoke might stay in an eddy in a dead part of the room and not circulate at all.

So, while your calculations show that two units will work, and experience has shown that they work, the actual reason that it works is a bit different from the simple explanation offerred.