Air Purifiers

One of the most popular appliances in the American home today is the air purifier. If you are interested in making a purchase of an air purifier, then this mini website should provide the information you need in order to make a prudent choice.

Given the information provided here, you may decide to not purchase an air purifier. In either case, this site will provide you with the information you need and hopefully will clear up some misconceptions about air purifiers. We provide additional resources where you can learn more about air purifiers, along with the most current news about the efficacy of these machines and general news about indoor pollution. Here you will also find our chat room about air purification, indoor pollution, and related topics, and you will find our air purifier online store. Our store provides a large selection of air purifiers with an extensive description and customer reviews for each unit.

The first question to ask before the purchase of an air purifier is this. Do you really need an air purifier for your home? Most people would prefer to breath clean air, but is the air in your home dirty enough to warrant the purchase of an air purifier.

Another important point to consider is this. Are you an individual who suffers from allergies? If you are one of these people, then you must absolutely purchase an air purifier. For the rest of the population which does not suffer from allergies, is it necessary to purchase a air purifier? To answer this question, lets examine the air of a typical home.

The typical home has many sources which contribute to the indoor air quality. What you see in a ray of sunshine in a typical home is about 10% of the indoor air pollutants. 90% you simply can not see. Lets look at the common sources of indoor pollution:

• Combustion sources such as wood, coal, tobacco.
• Building materials
• Furnishings
• Wet or damp carpet
• Moist things or humid environments
• Certain pressed wood products
• Household cleaning materials
• Central heating and cooling systems
• Humidifiers
• Outdoor sources such as air pollution, pesticides, and radon
• Poorly maintained gas stoves
• Air fresheners
• Space heaters
• Biological pollutants such as bacteria, molds, mildew, and viruses.
• People. Yes, unfortunately because people sloth off skin naturally, about 80% of what you see in a ray of sunshine is human skin.
• Dust mites. Many dust mites can live off of one flake of human skin.
• Dust. In a typical home, about 40 pounds of dust are produced per 1500 square feet per year. Each one of these dust particles that you breath in can have bacteria, viruses, and dust mites attached. Dust provides a mechanism by which microorganism can enter your body.
• Pets. Airborne animal dander.
• Insects. The feces from the insects can become airborne and breathed in.

So as you can see, the air inside your home is typically not as clean as the air you breath outside. Outside you have natural ventilation. If you live in a very humid environment, the level of indoor air contaminants tends to go up due to the fact that microorganisms need moisture to grow. So if we look at our basic question, do you need an air purifier in your home. Most people would agree that indeed you do.

The problem is that some of the air purifiers on the market today are actually adding to the pollution level in the home. So what are these problematic air purifiers.

Consumer Reports has published findings that the Ionic Breeze air purifier produced by Sharper Image not only does not work as advertised, but that it actually makes the indoor air quality worse, by releasing excess ozone into the air which can lead to respiratory problems. To the credit of Sharper Image, it must also be stated that they have added a ozone removal system to the Ionic Breeze air purifier. But even the best air ionizing systems will produce a small amount of ozone. Therefore, if you are seeking to buy a air purifier, you probably should stay away from the ionizer type.

The problem is this. Most table top air purifiers, ionic or non-ionic, simply do not work well for air purification. Why is this so, and what type of air purifiers work the best?

For an air purifier to work, there are two important functions which need to be optimized. One function is the efficiency of the pollutant collector, and the other function is the amount of air that is passed through the collector per unit time. In house units, those that are placed within the central heating/central air conditioning system, and the relatively expensive larger units which sit on the floor, will have more air pass through them per unit time. Most of the small table top air purification units can not push enough air through them in order to be effective.

Airgle 750 Air Purifier

Most of the efficient in-house units and the larger floor units also have highly capable collectors. Well, as you would expect, these highly efficient units are expensive. But if you really want clean air within your home, these are the type of air purifiers you need to purchase.

If you go into a hospital room where the patient needs to be in a clean air environment, and you as a visitor needs to wear a mask, you usually will find a larger sit-on-floor HEPA type unit. This type unit will clean the room of many microorganisms. Some of the best sit-on-floor units are the IQAir HealthPro air purifiers. These units are relatively expensive at $649.00 and up, but you get what you pay for. Virtually nothing can escape their hyper-Hepa filter.

Another high quality HEPA type floor unit is the Airgle 750 Air Purifier and the Airgle 150 Air purifier. The Airgle 750 air purifier won the highest ranking in an independent testing of CADR (Tested by the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturer - AHAM). The Airgle 750 is the most advanced and powerful air purification system floor unit available on the market today. It is expensive at $799.00 but you get what you pay for. The Airgle 150 Air purifier is less expensive at $360.00, but it is also a high quality HEPA type floor unit. With the Airgle 150, you get an easy to maintain, efficient air cleaner with lots of features usually found in more expensive air cleaners for a very reasonable price.

One of the major differences between the Airgle 750 and the Airgle 150 is the square foot coverage and the amount of air that is pushed through the unit per unit time. The Airgle 750 covers about 698 sq ft. with six air changes per hour. The Airgle 150 covers up to 300- 450 square feet with 2 air changes per hour. One air change is where all the air of the stated covered area is passed through the system. Both of these units are high quality HEPA type floor units. To learn about these units go to PurifierOn.com. PurifierOn.com is a division of Airgle Corporation.

If you desire to clean the air of the entire house, you really will need a whole-house unit installed in the central heating/central air conditioning system of the house. The more expensive air purifiers which are called whole-house or in-house, and are professionally installed within the central heating/central air conditioning, performed well in terms of Consumer Reports testing. The best price for this type unit was found to be around $700.00, plus an additional $200.00 to install. So you need around $1,000.00 to have your air cleaned with one of these units.

The top performing whole house models, as determined by Consumer Reports, are the Aprilaire 5000 and Carrier AIRA. There are some models that you can install yourself. For this type, Consumer Reports recommend American Air Filter Dirt Demon Ultra High Efficiency and 3M Filtrete Ultra Allergen Reduction 1250.

Consumer Reports found that the cheap type air purifiers, such as table top units found at Wallmart, Target, and other department stores, and easily bought online, really did not work very well.

There are two areas which can be addressed when trying to improve the air quality of your living or working space. These two areas are the source of indoor air pollutants and the degree of natural ventilation.

You should first examine if there or any sources of indoor pollutants. Use the list above and try to find any possible sources which can lead to air quality degradation. Remember that bacteria need to have moisture to grow. Therefore it would be prudent to remove any moisture sources.

A recent study was completed which looked at the air quality of indoor living space which had a large number of house plants. House plants actually reduced the number of chemicals in the air, but not enough to significantly clean the air like a in-house air purifier. Also, if house plants are watered to much, the moisture in the soil may lead to more air borne microorganisms. So, you should remove obvious sources of air pollutants.

The second area that needs to be addressed is the degree of ventilation that is in your home or workplace. Opening windows and doors, operating window fans, when the weather permits, or operating a window air conditioner with the vent control set to take in outside air, increases the ventilation rate. You want to move as much outdoor air through your indoor space as possible.

The problem is, this can not be done in areas which have substantial winters. During those cold periods, the only way to keep your indoor air at an acceptable clean level in terms of pollutants is to remove all sources and try to maintain a certain level of cleanliness.

Do not let open water sit in order to increase the level of humidity during the winter, or any time for that matter. Doing this has a marginal affect in terms of increasing the moisture in the air in the winter, but it does provide a source for air pollutants because bacteria and mold will grow in the water. It is also important to take the trash out on a daily bases, because this is one of the sources for indoor air pollutants.

Air Purifiers - Conclusion

So as you can see, there are things that can be done which improve the air quality of your indoor air, without the need to buy a air purifier. But some people, who are allergic to common indoor allergens, it is imperative that you use some sort of air cleaning system. For these people, you should install, or have installed, an in-house unit in order to adequately clean the air, or purchase a HEPA type floor unit. HEPA type floor units are more expensive then the cheaper lower quality table top units, but less expensive then an in-house unit. Studies have shown that the table top models are not very effective in cleaning the air. Therefore, the HEPA type floor units appear to be a good choice.