Winter days in Beijing can be dreadful when it comes to air quality, as the city’s numerous coal plants work overtime to warm up homes in subzero temperatures. A must-have household accessory is an air purifier (or several). Luckily, access has gotten better and better, with the introduction of new players in the past couple of years. One of these is Oransi, an air purifier manufacturer from the US that just opened an office in Beijing.
The company was founded over 12 years ago by a father with an asthmatic son to ensure a clean and safe environment at home. Peter Mann (pictured above), now the company’s CEO, used to work as an industrial engineer at Fortune 500 companies like Dell and TechData.
Mann said, “As a parent, I felt helpless to comfort [my son]and often the medicine prescribed by the doctor seemed worse than him not being able to breathe. I tried most of the air purifiers on the market and wasn’t satisfied that they were properly cleaning the air.”
The company name comes from the Finnish word oranssi, which means “orange” (Mann’s maternal family were originally from Finland). Currently, Oransi’s products consist mainly of high-end air purifiers that use medical grade HEPA filters, carbon filters with proprietary technology, and “electronically-commutated” (EC) motors that pump larger quantities of air at a faster rate. Apart from the EC motor, which is sourced from Germany, the rest of the components are made in the US.
Oransi has three product lines called Erik, Finn, and Max. Currently, the only line available in China is the top-range Erik, which has been tested in the US and in China according to Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR). The CADR results from US-based Intertek (an independent laboratory) found that Erik met standards set out by AHAM (Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers). In Beijing, the NCSA (National Center of Quality Supervision and Inspection and Testing for Air Conditioning Equipment) gave Erik an A rating – the highest mark.
Oransi purifiers can be bought through distributors online and in stores around Beijing (see their website for a full list). The air purifiers and filters are available on Amazon China. Oransi’s Beijing office only offers after-sales care; the branch handles all free repairs for products that fall within the 10-year warranty. Air purifier prices range from RMB 7,860-18,680.
Oransi 奥兰希
Mon-Fri 9am-6pm. Rm A056, Area B008, 3/F, 118 Jianguo Lu, Chaoyang District (400 665 9677, info@oransi.cn) www.oransi.cn
朝阳区建国路乙118号3层B008区A056室
This article originally appeared on p18 in the January 2015 issue of beijingkids. To view it online for free, click here. To find out how you can obtain your own copy, email distribution@truerun.com.
Photos: courtesy of Oransi