A significant majority of urban life is spent living indoors. Whether at home or work, we spent most hours of our day staying indoors — sometimes in close quarters with other people and pets.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the indoor air that we live and breathe in can sometimes carry 2 to 5 times more pollutants than outdoor air. These pollutants include dust, mold, and pet dander. Harmful chemicals contained in cleaning supplies, poisonous gasses such as carbon monoxide, and dangerous materials such as asbestos are all considered common types of air pollutants that we are routinely exposed to in our daily lives.
To clean the air around your house and workplace, most HVAC systems can do a decent job. But air purifiers, designed specifically for the purpose of air purification, are better. They rid the indoor air of dust and germs, improve air quality, help with allergies, and are more effective than HVAC systems at removing pollutants from the air.
Air Purifiers vs. Air Humidifiers
If you are new to the scene, you might be confused about whether air purifiers and humidifiers are the same thing with slight differences.
In reality, both devices serve different functions.
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Air purifiers are designed to clean and purify the air. Remove dust, allergens, and pollens from the air to improve health and breathing. Some air purifiers can also trap and eliminate bacteria and viruses from the air, aiding the reduction of infections and airborne diseases. People also use air purifiers to rid the air of odors and smells and circulate clean and fresh air back into the room.
Air humidifiers are designed to add moisture to the air. During winter months when the air becomes dry, humidifiers put the moisture back into the air, aiding breathing and opening nasal passageways. Especially effective for dry climates, humidifiers also work to help alleviate dry skin and protect materials like wood furniture around the house or office from drying out and cracking.
While both purifiers are humidifiers have their uses, if you are looking for a machine that cleans the air and improves indoor air quality, air purifiers are what you need.
How Do Air Purifiers Work?
Air purifiers use a combination of fans, filters, and other mechanisms to clean and purify the air. The air is sucked into the system where it passes through a number of filters that are designed to trap several kinds of different pollutants from the air.
HEPA (high-efficiency particular air) filters are the industry-leading technology in air filters that capture particles as small as 0.3 microns with 99.97% efficiency.
The fresher, cleaner, and healthier air is released back into the room when the filter traps all the pollutants.
Types of Air Purifiers
The air purifying market is led by 3 common kinds of air purifiers:
● HEPA Filters
They are the safest and most popular air purifiers available in the market. They trap the smallest particles of pollutants in the filters, ensuring you get clean and fresh air to breathe in.
Some air purifiers use carbon-activated filters that are highly efficient at trapping odors, but they cannot eliminate viruses and bacteria as HEPA filters can.
● Electrostatic Air Purifiers
Air purifiers with electrostatic technology use static electricity instead of physical filters. The energy creates an electrostatic charge causing the particles to stick to the side of the filtration system, ensuring clean air gets back to the room.
● UV Light Air Purifiers
These use ultraviolet light to kill germs and bacteria but they may not be all that efficient at trapping other kinds of pollutants from the air.
Important note: Air purifiers using HEPA filters are the safest and most efficient option for home use. Most other kinds of air purifiers release ozone gas and other pollutants that are harmful to health.
How Long Does It Take For An Air Purifier To Purify A Room?
It depends on how large the room is and how bad of an air quality situation you have to deal with. For a small room with a moderate amount of pollutants in the air, your air purifier can clean the room in around 30 minutes.
But if the air quality index in your area shows any figure of 100 and more, and you have a large room, you’re looking at a 2-3 hours timeline for clean air in your house.
The Many Benefits Of Using An Air Purifier
1. Eliminates dust, pollen, and pet dander
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No matter how hard you try to keep your house clean, the dust has a way of filtering in and becoming a part of your indoor air. Pollen, an outdoor allergen, does the same and wreaks havoc for people in your house who suffer from a myriad of environmental allergies.
A good quality air purifier helps clean your air from all kinds of dust and pollen particles, ensuring the air you breathe has nothing harmful in it.
Most air purifiers are also designed to catch pet dander — the skin and hair your pets shed every day. Since they are microscopic in size, your routine cleaning of the house won’t take care of all of it — though vacuuming can help.
But keeping an air purifier will help you remove all traces of dander, dust, and pollens — allowing you to enjoy sneeze-free days and a fresher environment.
2. It helps remove mold spores
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Mold is a fungal growth that takes hold on damp surfaces and reproduces through spores. If you have got mold in your house, it’s an indication that you have an excess moisture problem to deal with.
While air purifiers alone cannot rid you of all possible side effects of living in a space with mold, they can definitely reduce some symptoms. By cleaning the air of spores that mold uses to reproduce, they can help you slow down this fungal growth and help give you cleaner air to breathe in.
3. Reduces the concentration of indoor allergens
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If you or someone in the house suffers from dust or environmental allergies, air purifiers with HEPA filters have proven to significantly reduce allergens and pollens from indoor air.
Reduced allergens mean much healthier air to breathe that reduce your reliance on allergy medication. It also alleviates allergy symptoms like blocked sinuses, itchy throat, and runny nose.
This is important because cleaning alone won’t take care of allergy-causing dust. Even if you vacuum the place. Using the air purifier in tandem with your regular cleaning habits will certainly help the matter.
4. Lowers the risk of airborne diseases
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The air around us carries harmful viruses and bacteria that we inhale in our bodies as we breathe. Air purifiers have built-in filters that are designed to trap and filter these microorganisms. Some purifiers, like those that work with UV light technology, can even kill these bacteria.
But there is an accompanying risk of those devices releasing ozone gas, which is harmful to humans.
Therefore, use HEPA filters in your air purifiers and get rid of common germs that bring airborne diseases to your house.
5. Purge the air of unpleasant odors and make it smell nice
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Mold, dust, daily cooking and cleaning, and even using air fresheners to keep your home smelling like flowers release toxins and other compounds that can create an unpleasant odor in your house.
By trapping many of these pollutants in their filters, air purifiers are a dream technology that can quickly bring a fresh smell to your room, lifting up your energies and making you feel more productive.
6. Helps improve sleep quality
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When you are not constantly sneezing in the middle of the night, it does something magical to your sleep quality. You wake up less frequently during the night and wake up less tired, and hopefully, more ready to meet the day.
Clean and fresh air, devoid of any pollutants and allergens, and less reliance on medications, all of it comes together to help improve your sleep quality.
7. Improves overall health and lifestyle
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A 2018 research review by EPA concluded that the use of air purifiers in the house shows statistically significant improvements in a person’s overall health including respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.
Today’s air purifiers work alongside SEER2-rated residential HVAC units to help keep your environment clean and healthy. They remove the most common toxins, gasses, odors, and pollutants from the living space, lessening the load of allergens and bacteria from your system.
Not only do you sleep better but you also fall sick less, improving your overall health and lifestyle.
Invest in an air cleaner and breathe easy
If you are unsure which air purifier to invest in and what specifications to go for, we are the home heating and cooling experts you can trust. Call us at 267-471-9323 (PA) or 609-373-9707 (NJ) for a free estimate.