Sun Kool recommended installing ozone air purifier/UV light in air handler
 

Today Sun Kool came out for the first maintenance after joining the Kool Club (I bought pre-owned). The house / air conditioner is 6 years old. The technician showed me there is "environmental gunk" (white color) inside the air handler and inside the blower fan. He recommended they install a "PROformance High intensity DUAL twin tube UV germicidal air purifier with odor control" for $2200. He says if I don't take care of it, the gunk will keep building and can lead to allergy and worse problems for the household. This is all new to me (being from California and Arizona with low humidity). For now I told him no and just clean it the best they can manually this time but I would do research. Any insight on this or are they just pushing products on me?

Thanks,

Cindy

I would not buy the ultra violet light. I think SunKool pushes it to make money. My system is 10 years old and I don't have those problems. Buy a humidity device to measure the humidity in your house. About 10 dollars from Amazon. I have 3 of them and my humidity is about 40 percent, with a temperature setting of 79. No issues with the air handler.

It's amazing that Florida has been air conditioned for 50 years and all of a sudden, you need to add UV treatment to be safe.

Here is an expensive one on Amazon that a handyman could install if you are determined to own one. https://a.co/d/57us9GF.

This should give you some idea of the markup as this one is $250

Every A/C rep will recommend a U/V system. They earn a massive commission....

Might get your ducts cleaned to……LOL

Agree!! Biggest scam going in TV.:1rotfl:......Let's also mention if the ducts got that bad, imagine how the duct work of your car would clog up with pollen, dust, and everything else. Never ever heard someone say they needed their car's ducts cleaned. Just the occasional cabin filter change. And since your closed up in a car for sometimes hours on end, no UV needed there either.

SunKool seems to be the worst about this right now!! The reps are being commissioned to push these systems. You can open ANY air handler in Florida and show "environmental gunk". If you are in a retirement community, you are going to have greater success in scaring the elderly into spending the $2K. A year or so from now, it will be another scam they concoct. The rep that tried to push in on me mentioned he had sold 250 of these in the very recent past!!! I cancelled my annual maintenance contract with them.

So seen dust?

I use to work for a company that sold UV systems. UV only works where its light reaches and it isn't an instant process. The thought of air being "sanitized" by UV light when its moving at several feet per second is laughable. This is a snake oil unit.

If you want to have your air ducts cleaned, by all means do it. That is actually something that has tangible results.

My recommendation is every time you clean or replace your air filter - pull the filter out, turn the AC on, and spray half a can of Lysol into the air intake.

Let's see some evidence.

Sun Kool told me I needed that when I joined the Kool Club as well.

Hearing that SunKool is recommending a UV light, and also doing flexible duct cleaning has caused me to remove them from my call list for HVAC repair or installation. My list now includes Munn's, Sunshine, and Chuck Farrell. I have never used an HVAC company for routine maintenance.

If you are a member of the Kool Club, I would suggest that you make a copy of their 21-point tune-up list from their website. When they show up, follow the technician around and make sure he does all 21 items on the list, especially the one where he washes and "waxes" the outside unit. It is interesting that the most common reason for an HVAC failure is the capacitor, but it is not even mentioned on their 21-point list.

ASHRAE, EPA, PMC studies etc disagree with you. Good systems actually do work to kill organics. I don't know what Cheeseball units Sunkool installs, but a quality unit can reduce airborne pathogens well in excess of 95%. Hospital operating rooms take it to a whole nother level, but UV-C light inactivates pathogens quite effectively.

I don't know about shining a UV light onto a fixed coil, but shining a light for less than a second through air that is moving through an air handling unit has no chance to sanitize an entire house. For that purpose, it is worthless. But that is what people who sell these devices will claim. To clean mold or other contaminents on an evaporator coil, I would rather use a chemical that is designed for that purpose. Even if the UV light works, there is no way for it to reach the entire coil.