Buying a home air purifier does not entail just going to a store and asking for an air purifier for your home. Although it is a relatively simple task, you need to consider the following, while choosing a home air purifier.
Things to Consider: Finding the Right Home Air Purifier
- The enormity of your health problems: Since home air purifiers are typically bought to clean indoor air so as to have a healthier body, your health problems will be an important consideration when choosing home air purifiers.
- If you have light allergies, then you can make do with a cheaper and smaller home air purifier, but if you have serious allergy problems, then a similar purifier may not work for you.
- If you are asthmatic, you need an air purifier that has a gas filter. A gas filter helps to remove smells and gases from the air, which are a leading cause of asthma attacks.
- If you are sensitive to chemicals and react badly to them, your choice of home purifier will depend on whether or not your body reacts with the different materials used in different types of air purifiers.
- Area to be purified: The size of the room that needs an air purifier will determine the size of the device. If you want to purify the air in your entire home, then you can choose from in-duct air purifiers, or portable air purifiers that can be moved from room to room.
- Technology used: There are various technologies used in different house air cleaners. You can choose from ozone air purifiers, filter-less air purifiers, UV air purifiers etc. The choice will depend on what type of allergens you want to get rid of, and also if you need to remove odors along with other contaminants.
- Cost: Your budget will determine your choice to a great extent. If money is not a concern, you can go in for a top-of-the-line purifier with multiple purification technologies. If you do not want to spend a lot of money, you can choose a small portable home purifier according to your immediate needs.
The amount of pollution in and around your home, the number of people living in the house, whether or not you have any pets, are all miscellaneous conditions that will also affect your choice of air purifiers for your home.
Your selection of purifiers will be determined by what you want to get from the air purifier. If you need one primarily for getting rid of allergens and harmful particulates from the air, then a HEPA air purifier is your best bet.
A HEPA purifier uses a HEPA air filter for purification of indoor air. These air filters trap all the allergens and particulates that pass through the Hepa filter and do not let them back into the air. It is essential to note that itcan only clean and purify the air that actually passes through the air filter. If the air stays around the air purifier, but does not actually pass through it, the HEPA filters would not be able to purify such air. Thus, when choosing a HEPA air cleaner, it is essential that you choose one that has enhanced air flow capacity.
Air filters are the main part of any Hepa purifiers. These filters are usually made from very fine filtration materials, such as polymers, fiber etc. The filtration material is typically folded in pleats, tightly together, much like an accordion. These folds help to create a very large surface area of filtration material, through which large quantities of air can pass and be purified effectively.
If you remove all the pleats in a HEPA filter, you can get filtration material that is as large as 40 feet in length. The more the filtration material used in the filters, the better will be the purification efficiency of the air purifier.
Benefits Of HEPA Air Purifiers
- They typically have an efficiency rate of 99.97% in removing harmful particulates from the air.
- HEPA air filters can trap all kinds of particulates, such as pollen, dust, smoke, smog, pet dander, dead skin, mold spores etc, that are as small as 0.3 microns in size.
- HEPA purifiers can usually clean the air in any given room, up to 15 times per hour. This results in highly pure and clean air, which is absolutely fit for breathing.
- With proper maintenance and care, HEPA air filters can last you for as many as 5 years, without needing to be replaced.
- Hepa air purifiers remove all allergens and dust mites, which are especially responsible for asthma and allergic reactions in most people. Thus, using a HEPA air purifier will result in cleaner air and a healthier you.
Clean air purifiers are designed to filter out 99.97% of particles found in the air, up to 0.3 micron in size. Usually, they use HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate) filters, which have been tested by the Department of Environment for its quality. Additionally, international standards are applied to these filters in order to ensure that consumers get clean air from their purifiers.
Apart from that, other elements also come into place within clean air purifiers. Amongst this is the inclusion of electrostatic charged plates into the clean air purifier to charge the filter and therefore clean the air even more effectively. Also, most air purifiers are also equipped with charcoal filters to get rid of the odors from tobacco smoke and other smells in the air, in order to release fresh-smelling air blown into the indoor environment.
Finally, additional features which are used to kill bacteria and viruses include the use of Ultra Violet rays (UVA and UVB) which are emitted within the clean air purifier unit to kill bacteria which cannot be filtered out by the HEPA filter. Furthermore, most clean air filters run on low energy and therefore can be turned on 24 hours a day without causing an increase in electricity consumption.
Features To Help With Relieving Allergies
With this, when shopping for an air purifier for allergy relief, it is important to get one that comes with a HEPA air purifier filter. This is as HEPA filters have gone through stringent international testing standards through the Department of Environment’s filter test program, and therefore maintain certain quality standards in filtering out particles. In fact, HEPA air purifier filters can filter out to 99.97% of particles up to 0.3 micron in size. This will definitely get rid of mold, dust, pollen and pet dander which are common causes of allergies.
However, some higher priced air purifiers for allergy relief are equipped with up to five layers of different types of filters to provide ultimate allergy relief. Some of these allergy relief air purifiers include UV lamps that emit UVA and UVB rays in order to kill harmful pathogenic bacteria and viruses. Apart from that, carbon filters also make up part of the air purifier in order to eliminate odors, chemicals as well as tobacco smoke.
Finally, there is a wide range of allergy relief air purifiers available in the market, starting from a few hundred dollars up to the thousands. This is because different locations, such as hospitals and factories, require different levels of allergy relief due to the difference in allergen densities in the air.
“Today, statistics reveal that 1 in 3 American adults and children have severe allergy problems or have asthma”.
“According to research conducted by the American College of Allergies, it is estimated that almost half of all people who have allergies, and a majority of illnesses are made worse because of impure indoor air”.
“The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of the United States has finally announced that the worst environmental health concern in recent years has been that of bad indoor air quality”.
You must surely be wondering as to why we have listed all of the above. It is certainly not to scare or alarm you, but is just to make you aware of the immense health problems, which can be caused due to bad indoor air quality, so as to make you understand the importance of air purification systems, also known as an air purifier.
What Is An Air Purification System?
It is a device that cleans indoor air and makes it free from all kinds of harmful particulates, such as dead skin, pet dander, dust mites; and also removes disease causing germs, viruses, bacteria, and other microorganisms from indoor air.
Why are these so popular today?
In a bid to try and conserve energy and reduce energy costs, most homes and offices have become highly insulated. In the absence of fresh air circulation, the quality of indoor air keeps deteriorating, as there is no natural way to ventilate the area and remove stale and impure air.
The insulation of homes and offices allows harmful pollutants and allergens to remain indoors, thus worsening the quality of the air. As these pollutants can cause many health problems, air purification systems have become the preferred means to improve the quality of indoor air, so as to improve overall health.
Types Of Air Purification Systems
There are various kinds of air purification systems available to choose from. You can either go in for a whole house air purification system, which can help to clean the air in your entire home; or you can opt for a room air purification system, which will help to purify air in individual rooms around your home or office.
More and more people, everyday, are understanding the importance of air purifier systems. Make the smart choice and get one for your home today!