Roger Bisby had a Dustblocker from Addex on test for a month and found he didn’t want to let it go.
The ultimate seal of approval for me must be when I end up buying a product that I have tested for this magazine.
Yes, I admit I sometimes get a deal, but I obviously have to justify the purchase to my accountant (wife) who often has more pressing needs for our money.
Happily, in the case of the MaxVac Dustblocker I can play the health card, because it has clear medical benefits. Over 
the last few years I have developed an allergy to certain types of dust.
This is presumably the result of years of abuse, and now my lungs are saying ‘enough is enough’.
My lungs have a language of their own and send me clear messages, it starts with a gentle wheeze and, if I don’t take action to avoid the hazard, the wheeze becomes a whistle like that of a far off steam train.
Enough about me already. The Dustblocker is designed to be left running in a property 24/7 where you are carrying out building work and the powerful fan pulls in the airborne particles and traps them in a three-stage filter.
Ideally, of course, you would remove dust at source, and you should still attempt to do that, but we all know that when you are knocking buildings about you can’t catch all the dust.
So the the idea of the Dustblocker is to remove the free dust before it drifts around the building or settles on surfaces.
Positioning the unit between the work area and the occupied areas is a good strategy. The filter has three stages from the coarse to the very fine. The final Hepa 14 filter removes particles that are invisible to the naked eye.
As a rough guide, if you use the Dustblocker every working day the pre-filter needs changing every six months, or more if you are knocking down walls and chimney breast.
It is a good idea to change the filters before they become so blocked that the air flow is impeded.
In older style air filtration units they used to have streamers on the outlet which gave a good indication of the air flow – as the streamers dropped you knew it was time for a filter change – but this unit has a warning light that will tell you when the air flow has dropped so low that you are not getting the full benefit from the unit.
One thing I have learned using this unit is that you can use it very effectively in a sealed room.
Because the air is being cleaned and recirculated you don’t need to worry about a through flow of air as you would with a large extractor unit. If you want to work with negative pressure on the room you can direct the cleaned air out through a flexible duct.
There are good reasons to do this because you draw air in around the door to minimise any migrations through to the occupied areas. With the Hepa 14 filtration you can be certain that the filtration is to the highest standard, protecting both you and the people you are working with.
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