CPAPtalk.com

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I am wondering why anyone would think "sterilizing" a machine is desirable or necessary?

Any pathogens once present will probably be long dead when you get the machine.
This in a elegant solution to a non problem.

Yet so many remain obsessed with such.
I could be wrong.

Gotta go to postoffice to pick up an order of silver I bought a few weeks ago.
Paid 8K for it and it is now worth 6K.
So what do I know?

The way I understand it is microbes and fluids would not be likely to move toward the machine. All the air is flowing toward you and not being sucked back in. The machine itself does not need cleaning except wiping down with damp cloth. If you are still squeamish, purchase a hose and mask that have never been used and you should be fine.

The only thing I could think off is if you are a non smoker and you get a machine from a smoker. Once that smell gets into the machine I doubt if you can ever get it out. Sort of like a cars air conditioner once there, it's there for good.

*sigh* There is a foam padding to reduce noise in these PAPs. My guess is that by the time you pay to have that foam padding replaced you might as well by a new one right outta the box. Especially given your concern about the PAP needing to be sterilized.

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Tom
A friend of mine got a used machine ( from a smoker). He cleaned what he could see on the machine then took it out to his garage and let it run for 8 hours, without any filters or hose. After the run, he put in new filters and hose and could not longer smell the ciggy smoke. If my friend got his machine from a smoker and cleared the smell away, then you should have no problem buying from a non-smoker.

I see no problems to be encountered.

If you have concerns, then wipe the outside with Lysol and then turn it on, and give it a shot (not directly into it) Lyson near the filter intake and you have a machine that is as clean as the present air that you are breathing. Lysol kill over 99% of germs, if there any..

pap4life wrote:I see no problems to be encountered.

If you have concerns, then wipe the outside with Lysol and then turn it on, and give it a shot (not directly into it) Lyson near the filter intake and you have a machine that is as clean as the present air that you are breathing. Lysol kill over 99% of germs, if there any..

I'd make sure you ran it without hose and filter for some time though to get the Lysol fumes out of there. Last thing I would want to suck into my lungs when I went to sleep.

OP said he was going to buy new humidifiers, hoses and filters.
Letting it run for several hours certainly would benefit the situation.

I would put new filter in before I would use Lysol.

apneawho wrote:I would put new filter in before I would use Lysol.

Me too. I wouldn't want any moisture particles from the Lysol entering the machine and frying the electronics.
I would just wipe it down on the outside and be done with it. I probably have a better chance of winning the Powerball than a germ would have finding anything to sustain itself on inside the machine... if it ever got there in the first place.

pap4life wrote:I see no problems to be encountered.

If you have concerns, then wipe the outside with Lysol and then turn it on, and give it a shot (not directly into it) Lyson near the filter intake and you have a machine that is as clean as the present air that you are breathing. Lysol kill over 99% of germs, if there any..

That is an absolutely horrible idea. You'll either have no useful germ killing on the inside of the machine, or you'll risk ruining your CPAP machine.

There are delicate electronic sensors in the air path inside the CPAP machine. Any kind of chemical sprayed on them is likely to ruin them. Go spray some Lysol on a clean mirror and let it dry. Do you want to leave that residue on the inside of your machine and the delicate electronic sensors of your CPAP machine?

I'm sure someone will pipe in and say they've sprayed Lysol or something else into their CPAP machine with no problems. They may just be lucky, or they really didn't get enough of their sterilizing chemical into the actual internals of the machine to kill the bugs anyway. They may also have had an older dumb CPAP machine without flow sensors, humidity sensors or whatever other sensors are in the newer CPAP machines.

Lysol kills germs when you wet the surface with it. It does NOT produce a vapor that will go everywhere and kill germs. If the vapor was strong enough to kill germs, it would probably kill you as well.

The electronic sensors inside modern CPAP machines do NOT like to get wet.

archangle wrote: That is an absolutely horrible idea. You'll either have no useful germ killing on the inside of the machine, or you'll risk ruining your CPAP machine.

There are delicate electronic sensors in the air path inside the CPAP machine. Any kind of chemical sprayed on them is likely to ruin them. Go spray some Lysol on a clean mirror and let it dry. Do you want to leave that residue on the inside of your machine and the delicate electronic sensors of your CPAP machine?

I'm sure someone will pipe in and say they've sprayed Lysol or something else into their CPAP machine with no problems. They may just be lucky, or they really didn't get enough of their sterilizing chemical into the actual internals of the machine to kill the bugs anyway. They may also have had an older dumb CPAP machine without flow sensors, humidity sensors or whatever other sensors are in the newer CPAP machines.

Lysol kills germs when you wet the surface with it. It does NOT produce a vapor that will go everywhere and kill germs. If the vapor was strong enough to kill germs, it would probably kill you as well.

The electronic sensors inside modern CPAP machines do NOT like to get wet.

WD40 and a match then?? Kills spiders, I would assume it would do the same to germs?

There are airflow sensors, and possibly some other types of sensors inside the machine. Any kind of sterilizing chemical you force into the air path may damage these sensors.

There's a real good chance that heat would damage the machine as well.

You might find a DME who will be willing to take your money and claim he "sanitized" your machine, but I doubt he'll do more than change the filters and clean off the outside with an alcohol wipe. Then he'll probably overcharge you for a new tank and hose. Plus a high service charge and, of course, a hefty markup on the filters. The one thing he might know how to do is disassemble the humidifier and clean those parts, but you can probably figure that out yourself. If you're lucky, he'll be able to figure out how to correctly reassemble anything he disassembles. He may very well tell you that humidifiers can't be cleaned and must be replaced.

Replace the filters, and clean the water tank. Let the machine run for at least half an hour in a clean, dry area. If there's a smell when you put it on, turn the machine on and let it run 10 or 15 seconds before you mask up for the first week or so.

A spare water tank is a good thing to have anyway. Get the S9 dishwashable tank so you'll have a spare. Open up the used water tank. Even the non-cleanable water tank on S9 is openable with some effort. Once you have the used tank open, clean it thoroughly. If you want to go further, boil a pot of water and turn off the heat. Drop the tank in the water for 5 minutes or so. If it survives, it will reasonably germ free. If it is damaged by the heat, use the replacement tank you just bought. I've done this with a PRS1 tank.

However, remember that even boiling water doesn't completely sterilize things. There are some germ that can survive boiling. Most of the nasty bugs will be killed by boiling, though.

I've also used vodka or Everclear (pure grain alcohol/ethanol) on similar parts as well. I figure if you can survive drinking it, having a small amount of ethanol residue left behind is not going to cause a health problem. Everclear is highly flammable, and vodka is somewhat flammable, so be careful. I rinse with water after the ethanol treatment.

I've done the hot water treatment on hoses as well, but I probably wouldn't try that if it's a heated hose. I was prepared to simply throw the hose away if it couldn't stand the heat.

There are bacteria filters you can put between the water tank and the hose. Our host sells these, but I'm not sure they'll fit on the air outlet of the S9 machine due to the tab on the back of the machine.

https://www.cpap.com/productpage/Respir ... -pack.html

I personally wouldn't worry about there being harmful microorganisms in the machine itself. The room air you breathe isn't sterile, either. The inside of the machine is clean, dry, plastic behind some air filters, not some sort of organic material that provides food for germs to feed on. I might worry about something nasty being in the hose. I'm not that worried about the water tank, but I'd clean it really thoroughly anyway.

I found some removable parts in the used PRS1 humidifier I bought and cleaned them thoroughly. I think I just cleaned them in the dishwasher, but I may have given them the hot water dunk, too. I don't know if there are removable cleanable parts in the S9 humidifier.

I do get a laugh out of some of the CPAP ads in Craigslist. They often claim the machine has been "completely sanitized." Yeah, right.