Quote Originally Posted by Irascible View Post
In reply to the preceding post:

Sterilizing the coil might be needed in humid climates. It’s certainly not needed here (a dry climate) in a typical residential application. Regardless of the climate, AFAIK there is no data that shows the true rate of coil contamination or the rate of clinical problems that result from said contamination.

Assuming a three foot per second velocity for the return highly unrealistic. Three times that is more typical and very likely renders the machine ineffectual.

Hepatitis as the example bug? It might have been better to pick a bug that’s actually airborne. I suspect fluid, food and fecal bound bugs like the various strains of hepatitis are more easily killed by UV than a bug whose design allows it to survive the bright and dry conditions inherent to being airborne.

Ignoring the other two bad assumptions for the moment, you’ll never get a 90% kill rate because you won’t circulate all the air four times. Mixing just isn’t that good in most homes and is often terrible.

Producing highly reactive oxygen, that lasts for up to an hour according to Wiki, sounds like a good way to damage my cells. Get enough of it and the big C may eventually follow. Anything with a warning for the elderly and young should give pause to the rest of us. Just because I can survive a night of heavy drinking that would kill an old timer doesn’t mean it’s good for me in the long run. Just because a heavy concentration of free radicals doesn’t irritate me today doesn’t mean that’s good for me in the long run either.

In short, (barring new information) coil bound bugs (if they exist in a way that matters) might be killed till the thing wears out. The airborne bugs get a tan. And I (might) get cancer (if I actually spent the money maintaining the thing, which no homeowner I’ve met does).
Irascible, well said. At 500 fpm the air is moving 8.3 feet per second. I don't even believe a lite tan was in order. I would like to know where the 5800 micro watts seconds/cm squared came from. According to Kowalski at Penn State that number should be considerably higher.