Author: Jean-Baptiste

There is no question that fresh air in your home can improve your quality of life. To get fresh air in your home, the EPA states that in addition to ventilating your home with clean outdoor air and reducing the sources of pollutants air purifiers can really help in improving your air quality. However, the number of air purifier options you have out there is dizzying. If you are struggling to make up your mind about whole house air purifiers, I have written this post just for you. I think a good place to start in guiding you is defining exactly what whole house air purifiers are.

What are whole house air purifiers? A whole house air purifier is an air purifier that cleans and ensures fresh air in all rooms of a house at the same time. It’s unlike a portable air purifier which can only purify air effectively in one room at a time. To purify an entire home’s air, whole house purifiers normally use an existing air duct system.

Unless you live in a small 1 to 2 bedroom apartment where you can easily run air pipes to every room, don’t waste your time with whole house air purifiers if you do not have an HVAC, air duct or central air system of some sort running through your home. You can install an HVAC system if you don’t have one but your money will be better spent just getting portable air purifiers for each room if you don’t currently have an HVAC already.

On the other hand, if you have a central air system or HVAC then a whole house air purifier is worth considering but before rushing out to get one there are several things you should know. In this post, I cover all the important questions and factors for you to consider before getting a whole house air purifier.

I cover everything from how whole house air purifiers work to what are the best brands and finally I conclude with my thoughts on the circumstances that warrant you getting a whole house air purifier. Let’s get started with how they work.

How Do Whole House Air Purifiers Work?

Normally whole house air purifiers work by being attached somewhere after or before your HVAC handler to clean the air your HVAC is pumping before it is released out of your duct into your home. However, you can also get a stand-alone whole house air purifier that sucks and cleans your indoor air and outdoor air and pumps this clean air back into your entire home through your duct work.

In most situations, people normally install a whole house air purifier if they have a working HVAC system. Accordingly, let’s focus on the different ways whole house air purifiers can work when being installed on an existing HVAC system. If you understand how they work with an HVAC system then all the other situations are easy to understand as you just exclude the air handler section of the HVAC in your installation.

If your home has a duct system but no HVAC you can get a standalone air purifier which attaches to the inlet of your duct system and it sucks air in and out of your home through its air cleaning unit. As for HVAC’s you usually add on a box or cylindrical looking device with its own fans so as to not restrict the HVAC’s air flow. Your air cleaner can also be as simple as an advanced flat air filter that you latch on directly on your air handler.

Your HVAC system continues to do the air sucking and pumping part while the air purifier just cleans the air. The most common places where your whole house air purifier can be placed on your HVAC system is in your attic, basement, utility room, ceiling or even on your roof depending on your homes set up.

In the worst case, I have even seen some purifiers being installed inside walls and crawl spaces and this really depends on how your HVAC system is set up and some homes are just unique. If your air purifier is being installed anywhere else but in the places I have mentioned then you can start questioning whoever is doing the installation and perhaps get a second opinion before they do.

Now as for the setup, there are three main approaches namely, bypass, non-bypass connected and non-by-bypass unconnected.

The Bypass Approach

In the bypass set up your air purifier is connected to your HVAC system in such a way as to completely not obstruct the air flow of your air handler. So you have a pipe running into the side of your return duct that is connected to your air purifier and the main return duct.

The idea with the bypass approach is that if your air purifier gives out, then your HVAC system does not stop working and it also has an alternative air return duct route. Also sometimes the way your home is structured may not easily allow for a non-bypass approach and the easiest solution is to do a bypass.

The problem with this approach is that your air does not get completely cleansed as not all of it passes through your air purifier and actually just flows directly to your air handler through the main return duct. So if you use the bypass approach your indoor air quality may only improve slightly and not to a level you require.

The Non-Bypass Connected Approach

In this approach, your air purifier is attached right on your air handler. It can be placed between you supply duct and air handler or return duct and handler. This approach ensures all air going back into your home goes through your air purifier first and so if you have a really good air purifier attached to your air handler you should see a considerable improvement in your home’s air quality. Check out the video below to better visualize this set up.

Now an alternative to connecting an air purifier directly to your HVAC’s air handler is to just replace your current air handler filter with an advanced flat air filter that can get rid of more air pollutants than the usual filter but there are limitations to this approach and that I mention these in the next section. You will get far better performance and air quality with just an actual stand alone room air purifier or connected air purifier.

The trouble with the connected approach though is that if your purifier is not snug fit and connected properly you can get air leaks. Once you have air leaks in your HVAC system, not only will your HVAC not pump air through your home properly but poor air will sip through the cracks and gaps between your air purifier and your HVAC system resulting in poor air quality anyway. Any air leak as a result of poor installation will defeat the purpose of your air purifier no matter how it is installed in your HVAC system.

The Non-Bypass Unconnected Approach

The final way a whole house air purifier works in the context of an HVAC system is by installing it away from your air handler but somewhere along your main supply or return duct in such a way that air going into your home passes through your air purifier first before it reaches any room. The approach is less risky for your HVAC air handler as you do not tamper with the handler in any way.

Regardless if your air purifier fails then you obstruct the airflow for your whole HVAC system. Your advantages and disadvantages here are all the same as the connected approach but with a bit less risk as you don’t mess with the air handler. Again your limitations will largely come stem from how your HVAC system is structured and whether you have enough space along you supply duct or return duct to place an additional device before the ducts branch out to other rooms.

What Are The Different Types Of Whole House Air Purifiers?

The re are 10 main types of whole house air purifiers and they include,

1. Flat Filters
2. Extended Media Filters
3. Electrostatic Precipitators
4. Charged Media Whole House Air Purifiers
5. UVGI Whole House Air Purifiers
6. APCO Whole House Air Purifiers
7. HEPA Whole House Air Purifiers
8. Combo Whole House Air Purifiers
9. Stand Alone Whole House Air Purifiers
10. Duct Based Whole House Air Purifiers

1. Flat Filters

Flat filters are literally just the filter that goes onto your HVAC handler. You fit them on to your HVAC in the same way but they are better designed than standard HVAC filters and are able to filter out more pollutants. Flat filters are good at keeping out dust, and larger particulate pollutants but they don’t work for finer air pollutants, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), smells, allergens and gases.

More than anything, flat filters protect your HVAC system and extend its life. You, however, need to replace your filter about every 3 months or else your filter gets clogged up and your HVAC fan has to work harder to suck in air. Also, make sure your HVAC is able to handle filters with a MERV rating of over 10 otherwise your filter could put some serious strain on your HVAC and potentially damage it. If you want to go the flat air filter route with your HVAC check out my post on which HVAC and Furnace filter to go for here.

2. Extended Media Filters

Extended media air filters are a thicker version of flat air filters. They are thicker because they have several layers of filters stacked up next to each other. In this way, if a pollutant passes through the first layer of filters it is slowed down increasing the chances of it getting trapped by subsequent filters and taken out of the air.

Extended media air filters don’t simply fit onto your furnace or HVAC like flat air filters and you will need a professional to fit it on properly. These air filters can also be plumbed into your ductwork to trap air particulates before they enter your home. They also last much longer than flat filters needing replacement once a year. Extended media filters bear the same risk and benefits as flat filter air filters for your HVAC. They will give you much cleaner air the flat filters but like flat filters, they also cannot deal with the smallest of air pollutants.

3. Electrostatic Precipitators

Now that we have covered the filters we are going to talk about actual air purifiers. Electrostatic air purifiers are air cleaners that work by using an electrical charge to create negative ions on a set of metal plates that attract and trap air pollutants. This air purifier can be installed on your HVAC handler’s air inlet after your air return duct.

When your HVAC draws air in pollutants are attracted and trapped on the negatively charged metal plates within the air purifier. To maintain the performance of an electrostatic air purifier you have to clean the metal plates quite often. Its ability to clean air drops quite significantly whenever its metal plates get saturated with pollutants.

The benefit with electrostatic air purifiers is that they have low running costs as there are no filters to replace. You simply wash the metal plates in the device in a dishwasher or by hand and put them back. The trouble with electrostatic precipitators though, is that they produce ozone as a byproduct of their purification process. Ozone is a known irritant and can harm both you and your pets.

4. Charged Media Whole House Air Purifiers

Just like the electrostatic air purifier the charged media also uses electrical charge and negative ions to attract air pollutants. They are however different as the electrical charge o  charged media air purifiers is actually embedded in a thin wire grid within the air purifiers filtration system which is usually made out of fiberglass.

So on top of trapping air pollutants within a filter, charged media air purifiers also electrostatically attract and trap air pollutants within their charged air filter. They provide you with a much better performance than air filters and electrostatic precipitators. They can handle pollen, pet dander, and ultra-fine dust but unfortunately, they also cannot get rid of odors

5. UVGI Whole House Air Purifiers

Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation air purifiers use UV light to purify your air. They usually come as a device you can connect on your air handler or along your air duct before new air reaches any room in your house.

Just as the sun’s UV, the UV in these air purifiers destroy germs, viruses, bacteria and other microorganism running through your air duct onto tour home. They, however, cannot get rid of dust, pollen or any gaseous pollutants.

If you are only concerned about germs in your home air then UVGI  air purifiers could work for you. On the other hand, if you are looking to get rid of more than just germs you can get a whole house UVGI air purifier that comes combined with other types of air purifiers that remove all the other pollutants they fail to remove.

6. APCO Whole House Air Purifiers

I’m of the opinion that advanced photocatalytic oxidation air purifiers are among the most useful types of air purifiers in general. They can get rid of almost all air pollutants without any additional aid by combining them with other types of air purifiers.

APCO air purifiers are installed on your HVAC by either the bypass or non-bass method. They use both a fan and convection to draw air into their cleaning compartment. As air passes through the unit it is exposed to some enhanced UV light and thin metal catalyst sheet. The air pollutants exposed to the light and absorbed by the catalyst are then oxidized and literally burnt and converted into water and carbon dioxide.

APCO air purifiers can get rid of both particulate matter and gases. They are also great devices for large areas and they make good whole house air purifiers. This type of air purifier does not use air filters but rather has a cleaning unit called a reaction chamber. When maintaining an APCO whole house air purifier you only need to replace the reaction chamber every 2 to 3 years.

7. HEPA Whole house air purifiers

A HEPA air purifier is also installed either by bypass or non-bypass method. A good HEPA filter is able to filter ultrafine particles of up to 0.1 microns small. Nonetheless, HEPA whole house air purifier cannot remove dangerous gas and odor-causing molecules from the air.

True HEPA air purifiers are filter based and it can take you anywhere from 3 months to 3 years depending on the quality of your device and filters to replace a HEPA air filter.

HEPA whole house air purifiers are more readily available and generally easier to maintain because of the wide availability of spare parts. But if you do decide to go for a HEPA purifier get one that is an accredited true-HEPA for guaranteed and optimal performance of your whole house air purifier.

8. Combo Whole House Air Purifiers

By now it should be clear to you that most types of whole house air purifiers fail to get rid of gases and odors or fine air particulates on their own. A lot of these devices are accordingly combined to piggyback on each other’s strengths and abilities to get rid of air pollutants. One such great combo device is a HEPA and activated carbon filter whole house air purifier.

Activated carbon is very good at absorbing gas and VOCs and put it together with a HEPA purifier that can deal with ultrafine particulate then you clear your air of almost any pollutant. I have even seen APCO air purifiers combined with activated carbon even though APCO on their own can get rid of pretty much all VOCs and odors.

UV Germicidal purifiers are also another air purifier that is commonly combined with other devices. As much as you get the benefits of several devices in one device, be prepared for huge maintenance bills when it comes to combo whole house air purifiers.

9. Stand Alone Whole House Air Purifiers

Irrespective of what purification technology is being used you can also get standalone whole house purifiers. These devices also use your air duct and are usually used when you don’t have an HVAC system. Standalone purifiers pump their own air through your air duct system. They entail installing an additional air intake and exhaust system in your home.

Good examples of this kind of air purifier include Energy Recovery Ventilation and Heat Recovery Ventilation air purifiers. I won’t go into detail about these purifiers here but the main idea with these devices is to provide clean air in your home while minimizing energy or heat loss.

10. Duct Based Whole House Air Purifiers

The final type of whole house air purifier I am touching on is the duct based air purifier. Duct air purifiers can use any cleaning technology but the most common I have seen is UV light air purifiers. This type of purifier is designed in a way you can snug fit it into your air duct.

You can install a duct based purifier either in your air supply duct or air return duct. They remove particulates from the air according to the type of air purifier technology you decide to use.

So for instance,  if you get an APCO duct based air purifier it gets rid of odors, gases, and particulates before they spread in your home. The best way to get a duct air purifier installed is to hire a professional to do it for you. In light of this, depending on what type of air purifier you install, if your air purifier fails in any way it can restrict the airflow in your HVAC and potentially stop it from working.

How Much Do Whole House Air Purifiers Cost?

There are 3 key aspects to whole house air purifier costs and they include the price of the device itself, installation costs and finally maintenance costs. The price of your air purifier depends on its technology while installation costs depend on your location and complexity of your HVAC system.

Lastly, annual maintenance costs depend on whether your air purifier uses a filter or not or UV lights. Here is a table summarizing the price and costs ranges by technology for whole house air purifiers,

Whole House Air Purifier Costs

Type Of Air Purifier	Price	Installation Cost	Annual Maintenance
Flat Filters	US$5 – $100	US$50	N/A
Extended Media Filters	US$30 – $200	US$70 – $200	N/A
Electrostatic Precipitators	US$600 – $1500	US$200 – $750	N/A
Charged Media	US$150 – $1000	US$70 – $750	$30-$150
UVGI	US$400 -$800	US$150 – $750	US$30 – $100
APCO	US$300 – $1000	US$150 – $750	US$30 – $200
HEPA	US$500 – $3000	US$200 – $750	US$30 – $200
Stand Alone	US$600 – $300	US$200 – $750	US$30 – $300
Duct Based	US$300 – $1500	US$150 – $750	Us$30 – $300

Whole House Air Purifiers vs Portable Air Purifiers?

The most important difference between portable and whole house air purifiers is that portable air purifiers have much stronger performance per room. As much as a single whole house air purifier can clean your entire home it cannot match the air change per hour (ACH) rate of a portable air purifier in a given room. Portable air purifiers can change the air in your room up to 8 times in an hour while you will be lucky to reach 3 air changes per hour with a whole house air purifier.

This means that whole house air purifiers are much slower at delivering clean air in a single room than portable air purifiers. If you are getting an air purifier to address allergy or prevent catching something from the air an air purifier giving you less than 3 air changes per hour just won’t do it for you. So instead or in addition to a whole house air purifier, you would need a portable air purifier.

Whole house air purifiers are however very useful at general removal of pet dander, dust, pollen and other large air pollutants across your entire home. For larger particles, they provide the necessary ACH over a much wider area than portable air purifiers and are worth considering.

If you are concerned about odor and dangerous off-gassing and gases in your home the wise choice would be to place a portable air purifier in the rooms where such pollutants are a problem. As much as you can get a whole house air purifier that can deal with gas and odors if you want the best performance for these types of pollutants then rather opt for a portable air purifier. You can place a portable air purifier in a room like a kitchen or a basement where odors are coming from while your HVAC air purifier cleans the air in the rest of your home.

When it comes to maintenance, one whole house air purifier is much easier to maintain as compared to having multiple devices across your home that need a filter change. On the flip side if your HVAC or whole house purifier malfunctions then you could end up with no clean air in the entire home. For portable air purifiers, you can simply move devices around as needed until you get a replacement and you have more control over downtime.

Compared to portable air purifiers, whole house air purifiers are the better option if you want discrete and quite air cleaning. Unlike portable air purifiers which eat up space and you easily notice as they hum away in the background, whole house air purifiers are out of sight devices and add no extra obstructions in your home.

Nevertheless from an installation perspective portable air purifiers are plug and play devices and much easier to set up. As for whole house air purifiers, you would rather hire a professional to come and install it for you unless you are a handyman and you enjoy DIYing things. But for guaranteed results get a pro to come in.

Lastly, there is more uncertainty when it comes to whole house air purifiers due to general lack of transparency from service providers and if you don’t do your due diligence like you are doing now you can easily get walked over. As for portable air purifiers, information is more widely available and there is virtually no middleman in this supply chain trying to get you to use their installation services in addition to buying your device through them.

So here is my final take on whether you should go with a portable or whole house air purifier. My take is if you can do both then go for both. If you want coverage over the entire home your best bet is a whole house air purifier but only if you have a central air system or HVAC.

If you have asthmatics, people with odor sensitivities or anyone who reacts to bad air quality in your home you are better off with portable air purifiers around your home as they will give you the best performance when it comes to removing the finest of air particles and smallest odor and gas molecules. If I had to pick between portable and whole house I would go with a portable for even if it means getting one for every single room as they simply do a better job at cleaning indoor air.

What Are The Benefits Of Whole House Air Purifiers?

I have already revealed some of the weaknesses and benefits of whole house air purifiers especially in the section where I compare them to portable air purifiers. I think the single most important benefit of whole house air purifiers is that they provide clean air in your entire home with just one device. They are the most cost-effective way to maintain adequate air quality in every single room of your house.

Depending on what technology your purifier is using, whole house air purifiers are very good at removing dust, tiny insects and insect body parts, pollen and larger particulate matter from your indoor air. With some limitations, they can also get rid of gases and odors.

Whole house air purifiers not only provide you with clean air but also protect your HVAC and extend its life by preventing dust and pollutants from clogging up your air ducts. They get rid of air pollutants from outdoors before they even get into your home.

Unlike high MERV air filters, which can restrict your HVAC’s airflow, whole house air purifiers do not compromise your HVAC system but rather enhance its performance. This is because, in addition to minimizing dust levels in your HVAC, whole house purifiers also come with their own built-in fan to extract and expel air and thereby supplementing your HVAC’s air flow.

As your HVAC and air ducts don’t get as clogged up anymore, you spend less on cleaning them as you clean them less often and you can also reduce your energy bill by up to 25% as your HVAC does not need to work as hard as it extracts and pumps air through your air duct. Whole house air purifiers will also keep your house cleaner for longer by slowing down the build-up of dust on surfaces around your home.

Though they are not best for people who are sensitive to air pollutants, whole house purifiers will provide some level of relief for allergy sufferers, asthmatics, and other health reactions triggered by poor air quality. To get the best results in a room you have to supplement them with a portable air purifier.

With whole house air purifiers removing and preventing dangerous air pollutants from entering your home, they can improve your quality of life, and even have anti-aging effects on your skin and body in general with positive implications on your life expectancy. What’s more whole house air purifiers operate silently allowing you to work and sleep peacefully at night with no disruption or humming noise in the background.

For those of you who do not want random devices lying around your house, whole house air purifiers are a perfect match for you as they are out of sight and do not take up any valuable indoor space. Lastly, a whole air purifier can actually increase the value of your house.

As these devices reduce your energy consumption, they are viewed favorably by society as the world transitions towards eco-friendly and green homes. Besides, it can only be selling point to whoever is buying your home that their future home comes with an HVAC that ensures good air quality around their whole home.

What Are The Disadvantages of Whole House Air Purifiers?

The main drawback with whole house air purifiers is their weaknesses in dealing with gases such as carbon monoxide, ozone, radon, and VOCs. Most devices just don’t have the filters or the technology that can remove gases and even if they do, the air change per hour that can be achieved by whole house air purifiers is just too low to get rid of air pollutants such as gases fast enough before you inhale them. This is an important point especially for people with health reactions to poor air quality.

To get the best air quality in your home, in addition to whole house air purifiers, you need to place a portable air purifier in rooms like your living room and bedroom where you spend the most time. With this in mind, one can say whole house air purifiers reduce the need for you to have multiple portable air purifiers across your home. They provide an adequate but not optimal level of air quality.

Whole house air purifiers can also be quite complex devices to install. Not all houses have the same kind of HVAC or duct work set up. There are just too many unique situations and you may find yourself in a situation where you bought a whole house purifier and it just does not fit anywhere along your air duct.

There is a lot of decisions making involved, and risks involved in installing a whole house air purifier. It’s very easy to end up with leaks in your HVAC and if you don’t like stories and complications the easy way out is to stick to portable air purifiers. Finally, you will want to avoid whole house air purifiers that produce ozone, such as electrostatic precipitators. As I mentioned earlier Ozone can harm you and the last thing you want is ozone floating around your entire house in whatever quantity.

What Is The Best Whole House Air Purifier Brand?

There are many different brands of whole house air purifiers out there but here are the top brands in order of popularity and good feedback from users,

1. Lennox
2. Aprilaire
3. IQAir
4. Amaircare
5. Airpura
6. Carrier
7. Honeywell
8. Epurair
9. Generalaire
10. AirOasis
11. NordicPure

If you come across other brands of whole house air purifiers and find yourself in doubt about their performance and quality, rather come back to my list and look for a similar from any of the listed brands. All the brands I have listed here have reliable whole house air purifier solutions and strong guarantee and warranty programs. You won’t go wrong with devices from any of the brands listed here.

Do I Need A Whole House Air Purifier?

If you have read the whole post you might have come up with an answer for yourself already on whether you need  a whole house air purifier. Regardless allow me to summarize the answer to this question. Here are 6 key points to help you decide whether you need a whole house air purifier or not.

1. You need a whole house air purifier if you have a large home and you want to maintain good air quality in all your rooms. It’s simply the most cost-effective way to get good air quality across a large home.
2. If your home has 2 bedrooms or less you are better off with portable air purifiers.
3. You can get a whole house air purifier to run alongside portable ones if you or anyone in your home face various health risks because of bad air quality but the first choice is to use portable air purifiers.
4. If you want to have out of sight air purifiers for any reason then whole house air purifiers are the way to go. Whole house air purifiers will also come in handy if you want absolute silence in your home while your air is being cleaned.
5. You need a whole house air purifier if you have no time or money to maintain multiple devices placed across your home.
6. Avoid whole house air purifiers if you don’t have a central air system or HVAC. Also stay away from them if you prefer plug and play devices.

With this summary and the information packed in this post, you should now be confident about making decisions regarding whole house air purifiers on your own. If you still have any question on this topic please feel free to ask in the comments below and I will get back to you as soon as I see your question. Also check out my post on best whole house air purifiers and best room air purifiers if you would like to know which brand air purifiers to go for in each case.

I live next to a busy street, where traffic and dust pollution are rife and when it’s springtime pollen is everywhere in the air. So for me and my wife, it was only a matter of time before we decided we are getting an air purifier. However, before we went out and got one, a voice in my head kept asking “won’t we need one for every single room in our home?” This voice eventually drove me to do some investigation and I found there is actually a lot to this. To save you time running around trying to figure this out, here is everything I discovered.

Do you need an air purifier in every room?  Whether or not an air purifier is needed in each room of a dwelling highly depends on its architectural structure and size and the type of air purifier that is being used. Larger estate homes may require an air purifier in several rooms while smaller apartments can do with only one air purifier.

Before my investigation, it only made sense to me that a home needs an air purifier in every room. However, to my surprise, I found that even the biggest homes don’t need an air purifier in every room to keep the air clean. The main setting which I could find where having an air purifier in every room would be necessary is in a house that’s set up like a hotel, with private self-contained rooms.

There are so many factors at play that determine whether you will need a purifier in every room of your home. You have to think about the kind of walls your house has, whether you have a corridor or not, how big each room in your home is and the list goes on. There is no one size fits all answer and the answer really depends on your scenario.

I will explain everything as you read on, but the main idea you should keep on your fingertips is that the way you position your air purifier can maximize the area that it manages to clean across your home and minimize the number of air purifiers you will need.

Keeping this idea on your fingertips, I will start by explaining how your type of air purifier plays a role in determining whether you will need one in every room and then I will tell you about room sizes and architectural structure and thereafter look at other factors that you need to think about and that will help you make a good call.

My assumption here is that you are reading this because you are concerned about air purifiers for your home but everything I am going to tell you here, you can also apply to other environments where you have multiple rooms like office space, bunkers, and guest lodges.

How Different Types of Air Purifiers Determine If You Need An Air Purifier For Each Room

I personally think the most important factor in your decision on whether you need an air purifier in each room is the air purifier technology you choose. There are various technologies on the market and some are able to cover larger room sizes better than others, while some cost more than others.

With doors open, some technologies can easily cover multiple rooms at once while others will even fail to clean the room they are in. If you have multiple rooms to cover you will want to go for an option that will give you the most coverage at the least cost from both a buying, operating and maintenance perspective. You also want an air purifier that can cover multiple rooms. Let’s now look at the different technologies.

HEPA Air Purifier

If you decide to get a HEPA filter air purifier more likely than not you will need one in every room of your home. This because of the way they work and their coverage ability. HEPA air purifiers work using a mechanical filtration system and as a result, the amount of air they can clean per hour is highly restricted, especially as the area your device has to clean increases.

They work by using a fan to draw in air through a porous sieve-like cardboard material which traps pollutants in your air.

The more air that gets through your HEPA air purifier the cleaner the air in your room gets. With this in mind, you can immediately see that when your space increases there is more air that your device needs to process but unfortunately it can only deal with the amount of air it is designed to take in.

In other words, if a room is too big a HEPA air purifier just becomes useless. You would either need to get a purifier which can cover a bigger space or multiple purifiers to fit your room size. HEPA air purifiers work best for room sizes of up to 1500 sq ft but if a room gets bigger than this they begin to under perform.

The number of air changes they can do per hour (ACH) drops significantly above 1500 sq ft. Whatever size HEPA air purifier you get make sure it can give an ACH of 3 and upwards to maintain the best air quality in your home.

The other challenge with HEPA air purifiers is that even if you were in a small apartment with 1 or 2 rooms and an open plan kitchen and living room, it won’t be able to clean the other rooms properly when you leave each room’s door open. The strong reliance of a HEPA air purifier on airflow just doesn’t allow for this as it is difficult to get air to flow around your home between different rooms, using a fan on a single device.

So if you are getting a HEPA air purifier and you want to ensure clean air across all the rooms in your house, no matter how much space your air purifier can cover, I strongly suggest you get one for each room. If for any reason you cannot get one for each room in your home, get one for the rooms where you spend the most time and the rooms where your main source of indoor pollution is.

Typical sources of pollution in your home include garbage and cooking in your kitchen, the rooms your pets are frequently in, basements or storage rooms. Also if you go for HEPA air purifier, get one with activated carbon to deal with odor and gas pollution.

HEPA air purifiers on their own are only good at dealing with a particulate matter like dust and pollen and ultrafine particulates. You also want to stick to HEPA air purifiers that are labeled true-HEPA.

All the other types of HEPA are substandard and not as efficient at filtering out dangerous particulates in your air. To conclude on HEPA air purifiers, taking into consideration all the caveats about them you will need this type of air purifier in each room to effectively maintain good air quality in your home.

Photocatalytic Oxidation (PCO) Air Purifiers

Unlike HEPA air purifiers, PCO air purifiers not only use a fan to suck air and clean it but also use natural convection to get air through their air cleaning unit. PCO air purifiers also do not use a filter to trap particulates in the air but rather use an oxidation process to completely destroy pollutants in the air turning them into carbon dioxide and water vapor.

This air cleaning process allows the PCO air purifier to not only cover a lot more space than a HEPA air purifier but also to work across rooms when you leave doors open. Typically sized PCO air purifiers can easily deal with estate size rooms and a single device can work for a room as big as 3000 sq ft.

Now, PCO air purifiers will not penetrate through walls or closed doors, but if you do not mind leaving the doors in your home open most of the time, then you can get one PCO air purifier for every 3 rooms. The big assumption here is that your living room and kitchen are open plan and are not separated from your bedrooms by some kind of corridor.

If you have corridors between your rooms, even a PCO air purifier won’t be able to clean air in multiple rooms and you will need an air purifier in each room. You will also need multiple PCO air purifiers in your home if you prefer to keep your doors of your rooms closed.

Ionic & Electrostatic Air Purifiers

Electrostatic or ionic air purifiers, work completely differently from HEPA and PCO air purifiers. Electrostatic air purifiers and ionic air purifiers are pretty much the same things as they work in the same way.  

The only difference is that electrostatic purifiers have a collecting compartment that attracts neutralized air pollutants out of the air using electric charge. Both ionic and electrostatic air purifiers are active air cleaners in that they emit charged ions into the air to go after pollutant particles and neutralize them. We can collectively call them ionizers.

Like PCO air purifiers,  ionizers have quite a great reach and typical home ionizers can clean air in a space of up to 3000 sq ft. They can also release ions across open doors and thus clean multiple rooms but unfortunately, they create a mess. Their air purification process leaves behind thin films of dust on walls and surfaces made up of the particles the neutralized from the air.

Another problem is that they produce ozone as a by-product and this is harmful to your respiratory system. Some people can stand the level of ozone released by ionizers but if you have anyone or pets with an existing respiratory condition you best avoid ionic air purifiers.

The same principle applies as PCO air purifiers for ionizers in terms of getting a device for each room. Get one for each room if you can’t leave doors open all day and if your rooms are too far apart. However, only get an ionic air purifier if you don’t mind cleaning up the thin film of dust they leave behind on surfaces and minor levels of ozone.

Ozone Generator Air Purifiers

Ozone air purifiers work by emitting ozone particles in the air which attack, disinfect and decompose air pollutants. You see, as much as ozone is harmful to your health it is a good cleaning agent and can work wonders in freshening up the air in your home if used properly.

You definitely would not need an ozone generator for every room in your house. Besides you getting terribly sick, if you have small pets you can actually kill your pet if you leave an ozone generator turned on long enough while it’s in the room. So the best way to use ozone generators is while there is no one at home.

You turn on and run the purifier once your house is clear of inhabitants and switch it off an hour before anyone gets back. If you have to clean multiple rooms you can run multiple devices at the same time in each room or use a single device by placing it in each room for at least 3 hours according to your devices coverage area capacity.

Unlike other types of air purifiers, ozone generators are a once off type of air cleaner for intense cleaning when the air is really bad in your home. It is unwise to leave an ozone generator running 24 hours a day in your home like a HEPA or PCO air purifier.

I personally do not mess with ozone generators and if I needed to use one I would rather call in a professional cleaning service to come in and give my indoor air an ozone cleanse. So in conclusion, you do not need and you should not even try getting multiple ozone generators got each room in your home.

I have now shown you the key things you need to look out for when it comes to using multiple air purifiers across rooms based on types of air purifiers. As you can see, some types of air purifiers will allow you to cover multiple rooms with one device.

Accordingly, whether you can leave the doors around your house open or not for extended time periods aim to go for the air purifiers that I have shown are able to span across rooms.

I believe PCO air purifiers are a good choice for anyone who wants to cover multiple rooms and they are also great because they don’t emit harmful by-products when purifying your air as ionizers do.

Compared to HEPA air purifiers, PCO purifiers perform much better when placed in each of your rooms. PCO air purifiers can use both air and convection to purify the air as opposed to just airflow which limits the ability of HEPA air purifiers to work across rooms.

How Your Room Sizes & Home Architectural Structure Determine If You Need An Air Purifier For Each Room

I already started to touch on room sizes in the previous section. My rule of thumb is to use a PCO air purifier the moment your room gets bigger than 1500 sq ft. You can then choose a good HEPA air purifier for room sizes below 1500 sq ft.

If you decide to stick to HEPA air purifiers, the moment you have rooms larger than 1500 sq ft you may even end up getting multiple devices in just one room. You can get HEPA air purifiers that manage 3000 sq ft and these will do well and give you a great ACH if you place them in each room in a smaller home.

However, the moment you cross the 1500 sq ft line your HEPA air purifiers start to get really big and bulky and can take up quite a bit of space in your rooms. So if you are finicky about having big appliances taking up your space then you will definitely need multiple smaller devices to cover your whole home.

A better option if you have a big home is to get a whole house air purifier. For this option, you have to have an air duct system or an HVAC in your home. A whole house air purifier can be installed at the place where the air is let in through your HVAC system.

This will give you much cleaner air in your entire house. Now you will still get polluted air at much lower level due to efficiency losses but with a whole house air purifier installed all you will need in addition is a couple of portable air purifiers you can move around to the rooms where you spend the most time in as opposed to getting an air purifier for every single room.

That said not everyone has air ducts and an HVAC system. If for any reason you cannot get a whole house air purifier than you have stick to getting an air purifier for each room to cover your whole house. This is made even worse if you have concrete walls separating rooms minimizing airflow across your home.

Here is a guide on what size air purifier and the minimum number you would need for your home based on the size of your home. These minimum figures will give you acceptable air quality levels in your home but if you want even better air quality you will still need one each room especially if your home architecture restricts air flow. The minimum set up you should have is as follows:

• Small apartment or lofts (300 to 500 sq. ft.) – 190 ~ 320 CADR
• Medium apartments (700 to 900 sq. ft.) – 2 purifiers with a total CADR between 450 and 580
• Larger apartments (more than 1,000 sq. ft.) – 2 or 3 purifiers with a total CADR of 650 or higher

CADR stands for Clean Air Delivery Rate. Don’t forget that the sq ft here assume your home has a height of 8ft. If you have a higher ceiling you have to increase your air purifier size. These sizes apply to all types of air purifiers but as mentioned earlier your standard home PCO air purifiers generally come with a capacity of 3000 sq ft and you won’t need to worry much about coverage if you get a PCO air purifier. Just make sure to check the coverage specs when getting one.

Other Factors To Consider About Getting An Air Purifier For Each Room

How Many People Are In Your Home?

A circumstance where you may not need an air purifier in each room is when you live in a big home alone or with one other person. I am imagining a 5 bedroom home here with 2 people. In such a home you would need at least 2 or 3 air purifiers. One for each bedroom you sleep in and another for your living room.

If you a separated kitchen then an additional one for the kitchen but you could just use an air curtain to prevent the air from the kitchen going to the rest of your home. On the other hand, if you have a full house then get an air purifier for every room. Also get an air purifier for each room if you live in a 2 bedroom apartment and there are 2 of you in the home.  

What Do You Want To Clean In Your Air?

If all you are concerned about is odors in your home you may actually not need an air purifier in every room. In this case, you just need to identify the room where the odor is coming from and place your air purifier there. Common places where odors come from in a home include your kitchen, toilets, basement, pet rooms and storerooms and you will be pleased to know there are air purifiers specifically designed for toilets.

The other thing you could be trying to fight is mold and mildew. Just as you would for odors place your air purifier in the room where the mold is building up. If you have a basement though I think it’s always wise to have an air purifier down there. In addition to placing an air purifier in the room where the source of pollution is, also place one in each room where you spend the most time e.g your living room and bedroom and for some people the kitchen.

How to Position Your Air Purifier?

The way you position your air purifier is also very important. This could save you from having to get multiple air purifiers. A very strategic position for an air purifier, especially a PCO air purifier is at a point where it is nearest to as many doors as possible without any obstruction.

You may find your air purifier manages to keep air in multiple rooms clean even without living doors open the whole day just by placing your purifier strategically.

To get the most out of your air purifier whether you have one in each room or just one room, you have to place your air purifier away from obstructions. Do not put it under tables or shelves or behind your sofa or in a corner. This will obstruct airflow and minimize exposure of your air purifier to air through convection. Look to place your air purifier in a central and open space for optimal room coverage.

You can discover more about positioning your air purifier effectively here.

How To Operate Your Air Purifier?

How you use your air purifier is also very important. No matter how many air purifiers you have set up if you do not maintain your devices they eventually become inefficient and stop cleaning your air. You have to ensure you change your air filters or air cleaning unit of your purifier in case its a PCO type purifier as instructed in your device’s manual.

The way air purifiers work is that once you turn them off your room’s air immediately gets dirty again. So make sure you get an air purifier that you can run 24/7. If you are worried about your energy bill, air purifiers consume less energy than your fridge. So if you can keep your fridge on all year long you can manage an air purifier even when you have multiple running in your home.

The biggest cost you will face with air purifiers is filter changes especially when you have a device in each room. There is no running from this and this will make or break your mission to keep your air clean across your whole home. Make sure you can afford US$20-150 filter changes per device before you head out and get one for each room.

Another thing that will save you time and money is to get smart devices. If you have multiple air purifiers, you do not want to be running around adjusting settings. It not good use of your time and you can easily forget to adjust one of the devices.

So why not get a device that can adjust itself and you can also control remotely from your phone or laptop. There are devices with air quality detectors on the market that self adjusts to increase their cleaning intensity according to how polluted your air gets.

These devices will also warn you when you need a filter change so you don’t have to constantly run around checking. There are a couple of other factors to consider when running devices in multiple rooms but I found these are the main ones that could make or break your decision from an operational perspective. So pay close attention to these.

The Ultimate Strategy for Deciding If You Need An Air Purifier In Each Room

I have covered a lot of ground in this post. In case you get information overload or the details outlined in each section are hard to follow let me leave you with a simple strategy to follow when you are making your decision on whether to get an air purifier for each room. Here are 8 key summary points to guide you.

1. Your aim when it comes to covering every room and maximizing the air quality level in your home should be to maximize the coverage of your home with as few devices as possible.
2. The type of air purifier that can possibly help you get the most coverage with the fewest number of devices is a PCO air purifier but these devices are much more expensive. Go for PCO air purifiers in your home if you have 3 or more rooms.
3. If you have less than 3 rooms (e.g. 2 bedrooms a living room and open plan kitchen) having a HEPA air purifier in each room will prove more cost effective than getting a PCO air purifier.
4. If you live in a house alone or share a room with your partner, you may only need an air purifier for your living room and bedroom and the other rooms can do without or you can get an extra portable air purifier to move around when using your other rooms.
5. Get an air purifier for each room where someone spends over 3 hours and for rooms where your source of air pollution is coming from, especially basements.
6. In a home with an HVAC system or air ducts running through your house, get a whole house air purifier in addition to air purifiers in the rooms where you spend the most time in.
7. If you mean business about air quality the most you can do is get an air duct or HVAC whole house air purifier with PCO or activated carbon HEPA air purifiers in each room.
8. Lastly, make sure to go for smart devices to save you time and money in operating and maintaining multiple devices.

With these 8 points, I think I have covered everything important you need to know before you get an air purifier for each room in your home.

I hope you found this post helpful. Post any question you have on this matter in the comments below and I will get back to you as soon as I see it. If you are wondering which brand of room air purifier to get, check out my recommendations for room air purifiers here.

Count yourself lucky if you work from a home office but if you work in an open space corporate office, as I do, you literally go to work every day to face challenges with your air quality. A lot of open space cubicle-type office spaces rely on large commercial air-cons to provide workers with adequate indoor air quality but unfortunately, it’s not enough to keep office pollution levels down.

Even with air conditioning office space air is still contaminated by various air pollutants ranging from all kinds of chemical and organic odors to bacteria, dust, and allergens. Not to sound alarmist but these pollutants cause people to have unusual sinuses, headaches, and itchy or teary eyes as they work yet very few people can trace their discomforts back to the office’s unclean air.

Most people think its just their body acting up but as you read up on how poor air quality affects your body you start to become more conscious of your reactions to air. Now if you are among the few who are aware of the dangers you know that the only way to get rid of these contaminants is to use an air purifier which most offices do not have.

You could try to get your manager or boss to install one but it’s so much easier to just get a desk air purifier for yourself. However, you are probably here because you wondering which desk air purifier would be best for you. Based on my thorough research of what’s available online, I found 7 desktop air purifiers worth considering.  

The 7 best office desk air purifiers include the,

1.  Amaircare Roomaid Mini
2. GermGuardian AC4100 3-in-1 Desktop Air Purifier
3. Honeywell HPA020B Tabletop Air Purifier

Are you plagued by frequent dust mite allergies or do you feel your home or work space has a dust mite problem? If so, an idea you might have encountered to eliminate dust mites is an air purifier. Dealing with dust mites can be quite frustrating and if you are wondering whether an air purifier will work for dust mites, then keep reading as this post is for you.

Briefly put, can air purifiers help with dust mites? Air purifiers can help with dust mites in two ways. Firstly, they eliminate dust mite feces and body parts  and dust mites as a whole. Secondly, they help to minimize the level of dust in your home which is the main source of food for dust mites that allows them to breed easily. 

Though air purifiers are very helpful with dust mites, they have some limitations. The main limitation is that they can only deal with dust mites if they and their by-products are airborne. So to win with dust mites you will need to take some additional steps on top of using an air purifier.

To give you a full understanding of how air purifiers can best help you eliminate dust mites, allow me to first explain what exactly dust mites are and how they make your indoor air quality poor. Thereafter, so that you are sure you have a dust mite problem before getting an air purifier, I will show you how best to identify dust mites in your home.

Once you can tell you have dust mite, the next step is to decide how to eliminate them. Accordingly, I explain in detail how air purifiers can help and which type of air purifier you should get. Then finally I touch on everything else you need besides getting an air purifier.

What Exactly Are Dust Mites

Dust mites are microscopic 8 legged insects in the arachnid family and are closely related to spiders. They range from 0.1-0.5 mm in size. They are invisible to the naked eye and have a lifespan of up to 70 days and breed intensely under humid conditions.

There is no clear understanding of where they come from and the best explanation I found is that they are naturally occurring creatures like other insects that thrive under certain conditions. You will mostly find dust mites in homes or spaces, that have temperatures of between 20-25 °C and humidity levels of between 60%-80%.

Dust mites, do well in dark spaces and you will often find them in your bedding’s (pillows, blankets, mattresses) curtains, carpets, clothes and other soft and fluffy household things like furniture and teddy bears. If your home has mildew and mold, especially if it’s at a stage that is giving off nasty odors, then chances are you also have dust mites.

The main factor that helps dust mites multiply like crazy is dust as it is their main source of food. Part of this dust is made of dead human skin flakes which strongly attracts dust mites to spaces like your bed and couch. For this reason, you have to strongly focus on getting rid of dust to eliminate dust mites.

People often confuse dust mites with bed bugs and other mites and think they sting or bite but they actually don’t and as a creature in themselves, they are actually harmless. However, what’s harmful about dust mites is their by-products. Dust mite poop and their leftover body parts after they die contain enzymes and a certain protein that your immune system sees as a foreign body when inhaled or introduced to your body in whatever way. For most people these by-products from dust mites are what result in allergic reactions.

The elements contained in a dust mite’s feces and body are thereby allergens and similar to pollen also trigger a variety of allergic reactions including asthma attacks, eczema, itchy and teary eyes, and sinuses among other allergies. Accordingly, most likely the only reason why anyone would want to get rid of dust mites is to prevent the allergies they trigger.

How To Tell If You Have A Dust Mite Problem

The allergy symptoms of dust mites are similar to many other allergens and it’s easy to mistakenly conclude that your allergic reactions are due to dust mites. This makes it very important to be absolutely sure that you are dealing with dust mite before you go out looking for a solution.

There are various steps you can take to determine if you are dealing with dust mites. I am going to discuss three of the best I found starting with the most tedious one. The first and most tedious way to go about detecting dust mites is to get a magnifying glass that can magnify things at least 10 times and then collect dust samples from around your house to examine with the microscope.

Once you put your samples under the microscope you will either see some brownish, translucent 8 legged spider looking creatures or brown squarish feces that look like pellets. I would advise this method to you if you are scientifically inclined.

The next and more convenient test I would do is the Ventia Rapid Allerge Test For Dust Mite – (click to see it on Amazon) . This is less complex but you will need a vacuum cleaner of some sorts. How this works is you get a small container you attach to the suction pipe of your vacuum machine to collect dust around your house.

You then add some chemicals to this container and shake it up for a minute. Finally, you take about 5 drops of this mixture and add it to chromatography test cassette which tells you how bad the level of dust mites is in your home. Check out the video below for a better understanding. This is by far my first choice in detecting dust mite at home.

The final way to detect if you have dust mites is to leave it to the professionals. If you are not so hands-on, you can have a pest company come in and run some tests. What you can also do is to go to a doctor as soon as your allergies flare up and your doctor will be able to tell you if its dust mites.

The 5 Tips To Get Rid Of Dust Mites Fast

After determining that you have a dust mite problem, you can now focus on finding a solution. Here are five tips you can put in action immediately to help you eliminate dust mites starting with the focus of this post, “Air Purifiers”

1. Use Air Purifiers To Kill & Prevent Dust Mites

The main focus of this post is on air purifiers. As I mentioned earlier air purifiers won’t really help you directly with dust mites and their feces that are not airborne.

So to get the most out of air purifiers you have to somehow get  the dust mites airborne. The fastest and easiest way to achieve this is by dusting the rooms where you have an air purifier. That said, just by moving around your home, opening curtains, and making your bed you can get a lot of these little guys in the air and your air purifier will just gobble them up.

Besides directly removing dust mites, your air purifier will also help as a preventive measure. Air purifiers are designed to deal with dust very effectively. A good air purifier will get rid of skin flakes and pet dander and slow down the build-up of dust in your home, minimizing the speed at which dust mites multiply in your home.

Now not every type of air purifier will do this effectively. The air purifiers you want to avoid are ozone and ionic air purifiers. Ozone air purifiers are actually very effective in killing dust mites but ozone is a known human irritant and is dangerous for your respiratory system.

The best way to use ozone air purifiers is for spring cleaning. You have to run this type of air purifier when no one is around at home and finish using it at least an hour before anyone can go back in the house comfortably. I have personally chosen not to mess around with ozone and just live it to professional home cleaners.

As for ionic air purifiers, they also produce some tiny amounts of ozone which can be harmful if you have preexisting respiratory conditions like asthma or bronchitis or if you have a baby or elderly people with weaker immune systems in the home. Beyond this, some ionic air purifiers also leave a thin film of dust behind on walls, drapes, and surfaces after neutralizing them out of the air and thereby create a breeding ground for dust mite.

The only time I would use an ionic air purifier is when it’s combined with a HEPA air purifier that sucks neutralized particles out of the air before they settle on surfaces. This brings me to air purifiers that will work best for dust mite. From my observation, the best type of air purifiers to go for when it comes to dust mites are HEPA and Photo Catalytic Oxidation (PCO) air purifiers. I explain about all the different types of air purifiers here if you are interested. If you would like to know exactly which specific brand to go for, have a look at my recommendations on the best room air purifiers here.

HEPA air purifiers are designed to pull out and trap 99% of particulate matter in the air that are as small as 0.1 microns. This is well within the range needed to trap dust mites and their by-products which range from a size of 5 microns upwards. Below are some sizes in microns for you to compare. Things only become visible to the human eye above 30 microns.

• Human Hair 35 – 200 microns
• Pollen 10-100 microns
• Spores 10-35 microns
• Bacteria 0.3-35 microns
• Animal dander 0.3-10 microns
• Dangerous Dust 0.1-5 microns
• Smoke 0.01-1 microns

HEPA purifiers do not do well with smoke odors and gases as their particulate size are too small and way below 0.1 microns. However, they are quite effective for dust and dust mite. What you need to do though is look for HEPA air purifiers that say true HEPA as opposed to just HEPA or HEPA-Type as these are substandard versions of actual HEPA’ air purifiers (it’s a long story). If you want a HEPA air purifier that deals with additional air contaminants like odors, then go for a combo HEPA purifier that comes with an activated carbon filter.

As for PCO air purifiers, instead of trapping dust mite allergens in a sieve-like filter based purifiers such as HEPA purifiers, it actually incinerates the particles and turns them into harmless carbon dioxide gas and water vapor. I prefer PCO air purifiers because they do very well even in large rooms above 1500 sq ft as compared to HEPA air purifiers and they also have low maintenance costs in comparison to HEPA air purifiers.

However, if you are looking to get rid of dust mites in room areas below 1500 sq ft HEPA air purifiers become worth it and interchangeable with PCO purifiers especially from a price perspective. So either PCO or HEPA will work well  for dust and dust mites for rooms that are smaller than 1500 sq ft.

The only other thing I have to add with regards to air purifiers is some important features and operating procedures. As much as possible, go for smart air purifiers with automated functions. This will save you a lot of time and energy. To avoid wasting time adjusting your device for best performance you can get an air purifier that detects indoor pollution levels and adjusts your fan speed accordingly.

You also want a device that can automatically turn itself on and off based on a schedule you give it. There are so many other cool time-saving features to look out for like remote access and warning lights when it is time to replace your air filter. The final thing I have to say is that you need to get a device that is designed to operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year just as your fridge does. By doing this you give the dust mites minimal chances of survival and multiplication in your home.

This is all there is to air purifiers and dust mites. Check out my complete guide on types of air purifiers if you want more detailed information about the different types of air purifiers you can get. Now we can look at all the other measures you can implement in addition to air purifiers for more complete protection against dust mites.

2. Keep Your House As Clean As Possible

There are many things you can do to clean your home in order to eliminate dust mite and I am just going to list all the different approaches for you to explore further.

• Use a HEPA vacuum cleaner
• Sprinkle tannic acid dust or diatomaceous earth to dehydrate the dust mites and kill them
• Use a cleaning chemical that contains benzyl benzoate
• Use organic cleaning chemicals for surfaces and carpets
• Wash bedding’s and clothes with detergents for allergens and dust mite
• Use a steam cleaner for mattresses, curtains, and furniture
• Reduce clutter and dispose of old mattresses, bedding’s and soft and fluffy toys older than 3 years old
• Wear a mask when cleaning to avoid inhaling dust mite allergens
• Use a damp cloth when cleaning to prevent spreading dust and dust mites through the air

3. Get Bedding Encasing and Hypoallergenic Bedding

In addition to cleaning, you also want to get hypoallergenic encasing for your mattress and pillow and hypoallergenic pillow and bed covers. Hypoallergenic material and bedding’s thereof have extremely small pores compared to normal bedding’s and as a result, leave no space for dust mite and bed bugs to hide and keep them out of your bed. That said you still need to wash your bedding often to ensure you keep dust mites away optimally.

4. Lower the Humidity In Your Home

To minimize dust mite levels in your home, you need to keep your humidity level below 50%. A good way to track your humidity levels is to invest in a hygrometer like this one at Amazon to see exactly how humid your air is indoors at any particular time. To keep your humidity low, you can  invest in a dehumidifier but running one over a long period can get quite costly over the long term.

Also, with dehumidifiers, it’s hard to keep consistently low humidity levels in your home because of ongoing humidity producing activities like cooking, sleeping, and showering. This allows for enough dust mites to survive to regrow their colonies at any point in time.

A better but costlier alternative to a dehumidifier would be a Heat Recovery Ventilator (HRV). An HRV is a controlled ventilation system that reduces high humidity, pollutants, and odors by replacing stale air with fresh warm air. See the video below for a more detailed explanation of how this works.

The HRV exhaust air flow collects the allergens and exhausts them outside while at the same time replacing the allergen-filled air in your home with fresh, warm, dry air. As a result, your indoor air is continuously diluted with fresh, warm, dry air that contains no dust mite allergens minimizing your chance of getting dust mite allergies dramatically. An HRV installation is quite a process, and its best to have a Heating and Cooling professional to come in and set it up for you.

5. Consider A HEPA Filter On Your HVAC

If you happen to have an HVAC or central air system for your home, to minimize dust mites getting in through your system, invest in a MERV 13 Air Filter. I swear by Nordic Pure’s HVAC filters for allergies. What you can also do for your HVAC air purifier is to get a whole house HEPA air purifier like the Aprilaire Electronic Air Purifier but I highly suggest getting an HVAC Contractor if you decide to implement this. Try HVAC.com’s directory to find a reputable contractor if you are in the US.

6. Let the Sunshine In Your Home

The last tip I have for you is to open your curtains and blinds and let some sunshine into your home. Sun rays do well in killing dust mites, though they do not get rid of the feces and other allergens left behind.

Nonetheless, the more of them the sun kills, the more you slow down the growth of their colonies and how much allergens they leave behind. Add sunshine to your air purifier and cleaning routine and you get that extra edge in slowing their reproduction down. You can also take advantage of sunshine by leaving bedding’s and rugs outside in direct sunlight.

Final Thoughts

After implementing all these measures, you need to know that even after all the hard work dust mites cannot be completely eliminated from your home. Regardless, they can be kept at a level that does not flare up your allergies.

So aim to minimize dust and dust mite in your home rather than completely eliminate these. To ensure dust mites are at minimum levels use the Ventia Rapid Allergen Test for dust mite I showed you earlier and you will always be 10 steps ahead of the damned critters in your efforts.

A question everyone is bound to ask when considering an air purifier is, “what size air purifier do I need?” It is such a crucial question and if you ignore this, you could either end up wasting money and getting a device that’s too big or even worse, one that’s too small to improve your air quality. To help you avoid making any of these mistakes, here is my quick response to this question.

Briefly put, what size air purifier do you need? The size of the area where air needs to be cleaned ultimately determines what size air purifier you need.  As a rule of thumb, for an air purifier to effectively clean air and improve the air quality in a given space, its coverage capacity needs to be at least 100-200 sq. ft. more than the size of the area you need to clean. 

When it comes to air purifiers a small room air purifier will not work in a large room. Other important factors when it comes to deciding what size air purifier you need include, the technology that your air purifier uses, the type of pollutants you are trying to get rid of and the architecture and design of your home or space you want to freshen up.

Your air purifiers’ size will also vary depending on whether you want one for outdoor activities like camping or traveling or indoor use at home or at work. I cover all these different situations here and explain what size air purifier you will need for each case. I also outline the different types of air purifier technologies and what room size capacity each type can cover. 

I explain all the nuances about what size air purifier you need in 7 key points below and lastly touch on other relevant factors you may want to consider when it comes to getting the right  air purifier size for your needs.

1. Determining What Size Air Purifier You Need By Room Size

As I explained earlier, the first and main thing that will determine what size air purifier you need is the size of your home, room or area you want to cover.  Accordingly, you first have to find out the actual size of the area you need to cover. The quickest way to do this is by measuring your space.

An air purifier coverage area is usually quoted in square feet or square meters and you have to find this figure for your given space. Let us assume you are trying to decide what size air purifier you need for your living room. It’s easy to work out the square feet for this if your room is rectangular.

You just measure the length and width of your room and multiply these and the answer is your room’s square feet. So if your room was 50 ft. by 20 ft. then you have 1000 sq. ft. of space.

Now, what if your living room is not a perfect rectangle or turns out to be oval? In such a case, unless you want to spend time working out the math’s my solution is just measuring the widest width and length in your room and multiplying them together.

Once you get the square feet figure, you can then start shopping around for air purifiers. Now, remember, you want an air purifier that has a coverage capacity of at least 100-200 sq. ft. greater than your given room’s size. However, a major point to note here is that the square feet coverage specifications of all air purifiers assume the area you want to clean air in has a height of 8 ft.

Under the assumption that the room you are cleansing has a height of 8 feet, if your room height is actually higher, then your air purifier may fail to improve your air quality. This is where it becomes very important to get an air purifier with coverage of at least 100-200 sq. ft. more than your room size.

If you want to be more exact, you can actually just multiply the height and square feet to get the cubic feet coverage of your air purifier. Once you have this figure you can then find the percentage difference between your actual cubic feet and the devices assumed cubic feet and increase the square feet coverage of the air purifier you are going to get accordingly.

So for example, if your room height is 10 ft. instead of the assumed 8 ft., then your room cubic feet is 10000 cubic feet (10 ft. * 1000 sq. ft.). With your assumed air purifier coverage at 8000 cubic feet, your room cubic feet is 25%(2000 (10000 minus 8000)  divided by 8000 multiplied by 100) bigger than what your air purifier can cover.

So to be exact you need an air purifier that covers at least 1250 sq. ft. But personally, so that I can rest assured, even in this case, I would still add the extra 100-200 sq. ft. and get an air purifier that covers about 1500 sq ft. One last word of caution when it comes to room size is to watch out for some manufacturers that quote surface area figures rather than square feet figures.

Read the specifications carefully to pick out whether you are dealing with surface area or square feet. Surface area means the lengths and width of each side of a room multiplied together  and then the product of each side added together.

This is not representative of your rooms actual area at all. To keep this story simple, a device specified to cover a 1000 sq. ft. surface area covers much less than a device specified to cover 1000 sq. ft. area.

So if you are not careful you can get shortchanged by buying a smaller air purifier than you need. My advice is to stick to devices that specify their coverage in sq. ft.

2. Determining Your Air Purifier Size By Air Purifier Technology

There are various types of air purifiers on the market but the main types you will come across include HEPA, Ionic, and Ozone air purifiers. I will touch on both of these and one other purifier technology called PCO (photocatalytic oxidation air purifier).

These air purifiers can be classified as active or passive depending on whether they draw air into a cleaning unit within the device or actively emit something into the air that cleans contaminants.

So, for instance, HEPA and PCO air Purifiers draw air into themselves to clean it and so they are passive while Ozone and Ionic Air Purifiers emit particles into the air to clean it and so they are active.

Active air purifiers are generally less restricted on how much room they can cover as it is really about how much clean agents they can produce and emit into the air. 

This means you worry less about the size as the average ionic or ozone air purifier will likely cover any room size as long as you are using it in a single room. That said you still need to follow the size specifications and get a device that has a slightly (100-200 sq. ft.) bigger coverage area than your room size.

The more restricted device, however, is the HEPA air purifier. HEPA air purifiers are limited in how big a room they can cover because they operate using a mechanical filtration process. They clean air by extracting it out of their environment and passing it through a filter that traps out contaminants.

For you to increase how much room or area a HEPA purifier covers, you have to increase the physical devices size and by the time you get a HEPA purifier that needs to cover over a 1000 sq. ft. HEPA purifiers start to get quite big and consume a lot of space.

Because they use a mechanical process, metrics like the number of air changes per hour (ACPH) and the clean air delivery rate (CADR) are really important when considering a HEPA air purifier. Normally you want an air purifier that can do at least 2 air changes per hour and as much as possible if you have anyone with allergies or respiratory problems in your home or work space.

But now, the challenge with HEPA air purifiers is that as you increase their size to cover more room, they lose out on the number of air changes they can do per hour. This means though they clean more volume of air in a room they clean it less often in a given time period and your air does not get as clean as it would with a smaller device doing more cycles per hour.

This is a bit confusing but to make it easy for you, do not go for HEPA air purifiers with a capacity of over 1000 sq. ft. unless you don’t mind an extremely large device that you have to drag around on wheels. Also once you get a room over 1000 sq. ft. most devices can only manage 2 air changes, and this is not good enough if you are trying to get rid of allergens and germs in your air.

So the maximum size air purifier you should be getting especially for your home is around 1000-1500 sq ft. With this in mind, also don’t forget to leave that extra leeway of 100-200 sq. ft. Now if you are looking for more efficient air purification for room sizes that are bigger than 1000 sq. ft., this is  where PCO air purifiers come in.

PCO air purifiers are able to clean air well in pretty much any room size big or small because unlike HEPA filters their air purification process is not mechanical but rather chemical.

Rather than trapping air pollutants, PCO air purifiers actually burn them turning them into carbon dioxide and water vapor. The process allows PCO air purifiers to cover any room size be it a large estate home bedroom or living room or smaller rooms in smaller bedrooms.

So if all this air purifier size stuff makes your head spin, I would go for a PCO air purifier no matter what home or room size you are trying to cover. This will help you avoid the headaches of making sure you have the right sized device.

The only time I would start worrying about room size with PCO air purifiers is when you need to cover a space larger than 11000 sq ft. In such cases, you would probably need 2 devices rather than a bigger air purifier.

Now you may feel like HEPA air purifiers are useless but I beg to differ. They have their place especially when it comes to larger particulate matter and they are much more affordable with room sizes smaller than 1500 sq. ft. Also, given their strong ability to deal with larger particulate matter sizes like pet dander and sawdust, HEPA air purifiers have proven quite useful in rooms and industrial spaces of up to 7500 sq. ft.

Now if you choose to go with a HEPA air purifier, go for a device with a heavy carbon filter so you can also get rid of odors and volatile organic compounds (VOC). The recommended HEPA air purifier size is anywhere between 100 – 500 sq. ft. for a small apartment room,  500-100 sq. ft. for medium apartment rooms and 1000 – 1500 sq. ft. for large apartment rooms.

If you want to cover a larger area than specified above I suggest looking at the Amaircare range of devices. Amaircare has the best air change per hour rates I have seen for large area HEPA air purifiers with a capacity of up to 7500 sq. ft.

3. Required Air Purifier Size Under Different Use Cases

With regards to use cases, you will need differently sized air purifiers both indoors and outdoors. When I say outdoors here I mean in your car, RV, when you are camping in your tent, or when you are traveling in any other type of enclosed vehicle.

Focusing on cars, I found that SUVs, and smaller cars only need air purifiers that can cover between 50 and 200 sq ft. You can also use this size air purifier for small camping tents. As for RVs, campers, overlanders, and trucks in which you sleep in while traveling the size air purifier you need increases to about 250 to 500 sq. ft.

Again, this also applies for larger outdoor tents but as your tent gets bigger than this you will want to apply the same principle as you would for a room in a building.

Now in the case of indoor air purifier uses, you may need an air purifier just for your desk, a single room or your whole house. I think I have sufficiently covered requirements for a single room in the previous sections of this post so I won’t touch on that here.

As for whole house air purifiers, the size you need largely depends on the capacity of your HVAC system because you connect this type of air purifier to your HVAC air inlet. So the rule here is the stronger your HVACs suction force the bigger your air purifier needs to be. This can get quite technical and you usually need a professional HVAC installation technician to come in and do the math and get the right size for your home.

Much easier to figure out though is what size desk air purifier you need. Here you usually need any type of air purifier that can cover an area of at least 50-100 sq. ft. I personally stick to activated carbon HEPA air purifiers and PCO air purifiers for desk air purifiers because they clean out the most contaminants in the air without emitting any dangerous by-products.

Go for a desk air purifier above 50 sq. ft. air purifiers and you should have sufficient coverage for your desk. These are all the different use cases for you to be concerned about in terms of air purifier size.

You may encounter other unique scenarios from the ones I have shared but if you apply the principles I have elaborated here you should be able to find the right sized device for your unique situation.

4. Air Purifier Size By Your Mobility Requirements

When I say mobility here I mean being able to move your device around your home, work space or when you are on the go. Depending on your devices technology (HEPA/PCO/Ionic), beyond the size of the area it can cover, its actual physical size can limit where you can put it and take it.

This point only matters if you want to be able to move your device around your home or works pace or take with you when you move between home and office or when you travel out of town. If you don’t care about moving your device around then any air purifier size will work for you and all you need to worry about is your purifiers size in terms of coverage area.

Now if you care about moving your air purifier around be very careful if you decide to get a HEPA air purifier. HEPA air purifiers can get quite heavy and bulky in size as their coverage area size increases especially if they contain an activated carbon filter.

Usually when a HEPA air purifier reaches a capacity of about 1000 sq. ft. then you start to lose out on mobility. Some devices are actually put on a cart or have wheels for you to push them around because they are just too heavy. Good luck trying to drag one of these upstairs.

So when it comes to mobility and HEPA air purifiers try to stick to purifiers with a capacity below 1000 sq. ft. A device below 1000 sq. ft. should be light enough for you to carry around.

The other type of air purifier that does well in terms of mobility is the PCO air purifier. PCO air purifiers cover large room areas of over 3000 sq. ft. at a portable size. A good example of this is the Airocide air purifier which only weighs 6 pounds.

As for ionic and ozone air purifiers, these can get quite big, heavy and immobile too as their coverage capacity increases but not as bad as HEPA air purifiers. So in conclusion, if your room size is larger than 1000 sq. ft. and you need an air purifier that can provide you this coverage without losing mobility, then look for a PCO air purifier.

5. Determining Air Purifier Size Based On Room Design and Architecture

When it comes to style and design my observation is that you will get more variety with ionizers and HEPA air purifiers for devices covering below 1000 sq. ft. Devices with larger coverage areas start to look rather industrial and box-shaped and as I pointed out when it comes to physical air purifier sizes the PCO air purifier also remains the most versatile in terms of design at larger air purifier coverage capacities.

You will struggle to find something that fits well with your room design and architecture at larger coverage capacities for ozone, HEPA and ionic air purifiers. So if you are concerned about design and want to cover a wide room area, for more design flexibility stick to either to a PCO air purifier or get smaller but multiple HEPA or ionic air purifiers to cover your whole room.

6. Determining Air Purifier Size By Level of Pollution

If you live an area with high extremely high levels of pollution, this is one of the few times you can ignore your room size and go for a much larger device than recommended for your room size. If you are considering a HEPA air purifier then get one that can cover an area that is double your room size.

For a room size of 500 sq. ft. look for a HEPA device that will cover 1000 sq. ft. It should provide you with more air changes per hour and remove pollutants from your indoor air a lot faster. Again a PCO air purifier will do you well in conditions with heavy pollution because of its strong performance in large room areas. 

However, in a situation with heavy pollution would suggest getting one that is combined with a HEPA and an activated carbon filter to get that extra strength in dealing with larger particulate matter faster will the catalytic part of the device focuses on ultra-fine particles.

7. Determining Air Purifier Size Based On Noise Level

The worst devices I have seen when it comes to noise level are HEPA air purifiers. As the speed at which your device can suck in and blow out air rises in most cases the operating noise level rises. The noise can either irritate you or calm you by providing some nice background sound.

In a scenario where you are irritated by the noise and you just don’t want any noise yet you still need an air purifier that provides high-intensity cleaning then a PCO air purifier will serve you well. PCO air purifiers are known for their silent operation even under intense operation.

That said you can also find HEPA air purifiers that are designed to operate extremely quietly. However, as I pointed to earlier this ability quickly diminishes at more intense levels of operation.

What you can also do to get a quieter level of operation with HEPA air purifiers is to get a larger device. Keeping in mind the mobility and design concerns a larger device will be able to give you more air changes per hour at lower operating speeds meaning that you will get less noise.

You should be able to get lower noise levels with a HEPA air purifier if you get a device that provides about 40% more coverage than required for your room size after you have added that extra leeway of 100-200 sq. ft. as I explained earlier.

Other Relevant Factors To Consider

In addition to size, another important thing to consider when it comes to air purifier technologies is the by-products of the different technologies and what they can and cannot clean. I generally stay away from ionic and ozone air purifiers because they emit an irritant called ozone.

Next, I have a strong preference for PCO ( Similar to PECO) air purifiers as they clean out the most contaminants from the air including odors, gases, VOCs and particulate matter without needing additional features. This is not to rule out HEPA air purifiers. HEPA air purifiers remain very useful especially when combined with activated carbon filters to deal with gases and also when dealing with extreme amounts of particulate matter.

Lastly, beyond size, I also look out for smart air purifiers. Smart purifiers can be programmed to turn on and off as needed and change fan speeds automatically based on how polluted your air is and what noise level you require.

Having a smart device allows you to also monitor your device performance remotely. It really minimizes the pain of managing your air quality. There are many other considerations I can touch on but I think I have given you all the info you really need to make a good decision when deciding what size air purifier you need so let me end here.  Check out my specific room air purifier recommendations here, if you want to know which exact air purifiers will work best in light of all the factors I have discussed here.

There was a time I used to drive a car with no air conditioning and I often found myself driving with tiny particles floating around or in some unpleasant odor. Then one day it occurred to me that, actually, “ I can get an air purifier for my car.” So I went online to see what’s available and I was instantly overwhelmed by the plethora of devices being sold.

With so many devices out there I failed to decide on what to get. Various questions were popping up in my mind but one of my most pressing concerns was whether a car air purifier could even solve my car air quality problem. So as I usually do, I did some intense online research and here is a quick answer to the question based on my research.

Are car air purifiers worth it? Car air purifiers work and are worth it but only under certain conditions. Some cars come with a built-in cabin air purifiers making an air purifier worthless while some devices marketed as car air purifiers simply fail to make any significant improvement to a car’s air quality.

There is an extensively wide range of devices being marketed as car air purifiers and many of these outright do not work and you have to be very cautious before you choose one. That said, the main factors determining whether a car air purifier will be worth it for you or not include the type of car you are driving and the type of air purifier technology.

I will begin by elaborating on the type and condition of the car you are driving and then delve into the general features you need and important things you need to do to get the most out of a car air purifier. Then once you have understood the general principles I will start looking at the different types of car air purifiers why each one is worth it or not.

Finally, I will touch on other factors you need to consider, including whether car air purifiers are safe and additional things you can do to improve the air quality in your car. The information I am sharing here helped me make a solid decision about getting a car air purifier and I am confident that once you get through all the information here, you will know whether you need a car air purifier or not and exactly what type of device to get.

Determining Whether You Need A Car Air Purifier by Type & Condition of Car You Are Driving

The first deciding factor on whether you need an air purifier for your car or not is the type of car you have. What I mean when I say the type of car, is actually the built-in purification features that your car has.

Most cars now come with a cabin air filter that circulates the air in your vehicle. Other cars like the latest edition of the Land Rover even come with the option of a built-in ionic air purifier. (Check out the video below). However, you may find yourself in a situation whereby your car has no cabin air filter or your air filter no longer works and your air conditioner is busted.

If you check out your car and find you have working air filters, your built-in cabin air filter might be strong enough to keep the air in your car fresh. If so, you may not need a car air purifier at all. If you find your car’s air quality is appalling even when it has an air filter, your first point of call should be to check your filter and perhaps get it replaced before getting an air purifier.

This brings us to the scenario where your car’s air filter outright does not work even when you replace it or your car plainly does not have an air filter. If your car is in this condition or you have this type of car, this is where an air purifier becomes useful. In this instance, an air purifier will provide necessary air circulation and get rid of pollutant particles as you use your car.

Another scenario you may find yourself in where you will need an air purifier is if your car’s air filter is not designed to keep out pollutants with ultrafine particles. Most car cabin air filtration systems will not be able to filter out particles smaller than dust such as Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) or various gases and odors. 

What you would need to do in this case before trying to get an air purifier is to try to find an activated carbon HEPA air filter for your car. If you fail to find this for your car then you can resort to a car air purifier.

Lastly, if you have a car like the latest series of range rovers, check if your car came with a built-in air purifier before going out and getting a separate device. If your car does not have an air purifier in this case, then you can either get an original device fitted by your car dealership or simply get a car air purifier.

Now you will notice that a car like the land rover will have a powerful air filter but they still give you an option to have a car air purifier. From my research on this, I found that having a good air filter in your car is enough for you to get an acceptable air quality level as you travel. The car air purifier comes in handy here when you have serious outdoor pollution levels or if you travel with your pets or have serious reactions to air allergens.

Another point I should have mentioned earlier is that car air filters work best at keeping air pollutants out of your car rather than taking them out. So if your source of pollution is from within your car (e.g. pet dander, dust or funky odors) besides addressing this at the source by simply cleaning your car, a car air purifier will do the trick in getting rid of these pollutants.

Car air purifiers also become very useful if your problem is with air contaminants that predominantly enter your vehicle through open windows. When you close your car windows, working together with your air filter, your air purifier helps get rid of pollutants in your car much faster and gives you much cleaner air much sooner.

You will also notice my focus here has been on passenger cars but the principles here apply to other types of vehicles. There are obviously a couple of differences. For instance, if you are driving an RV or you have a camper/caravan or a heavy haul truck an air purifier is absolutely necessary and a great investment. These are all types of vehicles you dwell in for extended time periods and your air quality in there needs to be at its best or else you put yourself at risk of getting sick.

I have now shown you all the nuances when it comes to the condition and type of car you have. I have covered a lot of info here and in case you feel a little overwhelmed, here is a quick 8 step summary. 

1. When determining if a car air purifier will be useful for you the first step you need to take is to check if your car has a working cabin air filtration system and a built-in air purifier.
2. Next, you need to determine if you are easily prone to allergens in the air and if the source of air pollution in your car is mostly from within your car (e.g. pet hair and dander, dust, cigarette smoke smell, and ash).
3. You also need to check if air pollution in your car mostly comes through your windows and determine if your city has dangerous pollution levels.
4. If you find your car does not have a working cabin air filter or an air purifier and that your source of air pollution is from within your car then you can start thinking about investing in a car air purifier.
5. If your cabin air filter works fine and your car does not have a built-in air purifier, you can also consider a car air purifier if you live in a highly polluted city.
6. A car air purifier will be worth it for you if your source of pollution is from within your car or through your car windows.
7. Ultimately, if you or anyone in your family is extra sensitive to air pollution or airborne allergens then an air purifier is worth your while.
8. Lastly, invest in a car air purifier if you own a heavy-duty vehicle like an RV, a camper, or a truck. Your air quality can quickly deteriorate if you live in your vehicle making you highly vulnerable to all kinds of airborne illnesses.

General Features and Modes of Operation That Determine If A Car Air Purifier Is Worth It

Another important factor at play when it comes to car air purifiers is how they work and the features they have. Not all car purifiers remove the same kind of pollutants in the air. Some will deal with more pollutants than others and with better functionality.

Ideally, when you get a car air purifier you want one that not only gets rid of visible air particles and odors but also deals with invisible and harmful ultrafine air contaminants. Furthermore, you will find some air purifiers that need to be plugged into your cars power supply to function and some that just work independently using a rechargeable battery. Between these two types of purifiers you would rather go for ones with a rechargeable battery.

When using an air purifier to improve air quality indoors or in your vehicle you want to stick to devices that can run for 24 hours a day and while you are not there. This ensures that whenever you go back to your car or home you always walk into fresh air. So with this in mind, your first choice for your car should be a device which can power itself as it will be able to clean the air in your car 24/7 while your car is parked.

To add on, you also want a device with smart features. You can now find automated devices that adjust their air cleaning intensity based on the level of pollution of your air. Some car air purifiers also have timers you can set to switch your purifier off while you are gone and on at a set time before you return to your vehicle.

With smart devices, you can not only prolong the life of your car purifier but also optimize the amount of fresh air you breathe as you commute. Smart car air purifiers also make your life seamless and easier as they have warning indicators of exactly when they need to be maintained and you spend less time adjusting their settings to better clean the air in your car.

Lastly, no matter what kind of car air purifier you go for, to get the best performance out of them you need to ensure you close your car windows while using them. It is kind of like your car’s air conditioner. It’s useless turning it on while your windows are open.

If you are one to have your car windows open all the time then don’t waste your time and money on a car air purifier. It simply won’t clean the air in your car adequately. Your air purifier will be fighting a losing battle as new polluted air constantly enters your vehicle.

Determining Whether An Air Purifier Will Be Worth It by Type of Purification Technology

With the features of car air purifiers out of the way, we can now focus on the different types of car air purifiers.

Electrostatic and Ionic Car Air Purifiers

Electrostatic and ionic/ionizer car air purifiers come in different shapes and sizes and work using the same principle. They work by using charged electrical surfaces or needles to generate electrically charged air or gas ions. These ions then attach to airborne particles which are then electrostatically attracted to a charged collector plate or simply fall and settle on surfaces around your car.

This kind of air purifier often comes as a device you can plug into the cigarette lighter unit of your car. Ionizers are also available as rechargeable portable devices that can be operated 24/7 in your car. Ionizers can get rid of particles such as dust, pollen, and mold spores.

The challenges you will face with ionizers is that they fail to effectively clean the air of gas, smoke, and odors.

When it comes to car ionizers I would only get one if smoke and odors were not a big concern but as I explain later in the safety section I generally avoid ionizers because they make a mess and they can be unsafe.

Car Ozone Generator Air Purifiers

Car ozone generators work by producing ozone, a strong cleaning agent that kills off odors and many different air contaminants including particulate matter and gases. The trouble with ozone air purifiers is that it’s dangerous to inhale (see more detail in the safety section below).

So you cannot safely use ozone generators to purify the air in your car’s cabin while you are on the go. The only time an ozone generator is useful for your car is when no one is inside and all you worried about is removing odors or mold build up. Other than that, you would rather stay away from ozone generators and live them in the hands of professional cleaning services.

HEPA Car Air Purifiers

Compared to ozone generators and ionizers HEPA air purifiers remove airborne particulates much more safely with virtually no byproducts. The challenge with HEPA air purifiers for cars is that they can be too small and will need frequent filter replacement.

Don’t waste your time with HEPA air purifiers for gases and odors. On their own, they won’t help you with car fumes or cigarette smoke and odor. If it wasn’t for this, I would have probably settled for a HEPA car air purifier. So like ionizers I say only go for HEPA car air purifiers if you are no worried about gases and odors.

Photocatalytic Oxidation (PCO) Car Air Purifiers

PCO car air purifiers work by reflecting an intense ultraviolet light on a metal surface which in turn oxidizes air pollutants. PCO air purifiers convert harmful particulates and toxic gases into safer compounds such as carbon dioxide and water.

PCO air purifiers are effective against a host of gases and particulate matter and can deal with pretty much all the common air contaminants you will face in your car. Whats more with this kind of car purifier there are no filters to replace. You only have a catalytic chamber which can last you up to 3 years before it needs replacing.

PCO air purifiers also produce no harmful byproducts. After extensive research, I am yet to see any other air purifier technology that matches the purification capabilities of PCO purifiers. Accordingly, my first choice when it comes to car air purifiers is to go with a PCO purifier.

Unfortunately, this kind of car air purifier is not widely produced but among the few devices I found and I really liked is the Air Oasis Angel Surface Sanifier. You can run this device in pretty much any vehicle as it can cover 250 sq ft but you would probably need 2 of these for an RV.

Combo Car Air Purifiers

Not to completely rule out HEPA air purifiers, an adequate option is to go for a combo car air purifier. Depending on your car you can either go for a device like the Aerus QuitePure Auto or the Allerair MobileAir Vocarb car air purifier. These devices come with an activated carbon filter combined with a HEPA filter.

Activated carbon is well known for absorbing gases and odors and combining it with a true HEPA filter gives you a car purifier that can sufficiently protect you against poor air quality in your car.

I have now covered the main types of car air purifiers you will come across online. In summary, you should stick to PCO and true HEPA air purifiers combined with activated carbon as these will get rid of most of the air pollutants you will face in your car. Lets now move on and look at other factors for you to consider.

Other Considerations When Deciding About A Car Air Purifier

Are Car Air Purifiers Safe?

Another important question that may cross your mind when deciding if car air purifiers are worth it is whether they are safe. Car air purifiers are generally safe devices provided you operate them as instructed in your user manual. I personally avoid car air purifiers that come without a user manual especially if its a device that I have to plug into my cars power supply.

I also avoid ionic air purifiers whether for car use or any other use for two main reasons. The first is that as much as they clean your car’s air, they do this by neutralizing contaminants in the air in such a way that they end up collecting a thin film of dust on surfaces around your car and overtime this gets messy.

Secondly, they produce a dangerous irritant called ozone as a byproduct of their purification process. Ozone is when inhaled can cause you throat irritations, shortness of breath and damage your lungs. I also avoid car ozone generators for the same reason.

That said, ozone is actually quite a good cleaning agent and cleans air contaminants and odors quite well and so car ozone air purifiers actually have their place. If you want to deal with tough odors and mold in your car, an ozone generator can be really helpful. The trick is to use ozone purifiers only when you are not in your vehicle to avoid inhaling ozone. Turn on your purifier when you park your car and off at least an hour before using car.

Besides ionic air purifiers and ozone generators, be cautious with rechargeable devices when recharging them in your car. I am personally wary of this because I have one too many encounters with car USB chargers damaging a rechargeable device.

There are just too many fake products out there when it comes to car air purifiers and so take extra care on the type of device you are buying and when you decide to plug it into your cars power supply. To be on the safe side get a product that has a warranty and you can easily return to the store or manufacturer should any faults occur.

In addition to taking general safety precautions as you do for all kinds of electronics, this is pretty much all there is to stress about with safety issues when it comes to car air purifiers. In view of all this, my conclusion on car air purifiers from a safety perspective is that they are worth it.

Additional Ways to Improve Your Car’s Air Quality

Depending on the kind of air quality challenge you have in your car there are other solutions you can implement in addition to your car air purifier. If your main challenge is maintaining good odor in your car check out my detailed guide on how air purifiers can help you deal with odors in general.  

In the guide you will find I mention activated carbon. In particular I strongly suggest you look into bamboo charcoal air purifier bags for your car. These bags contain activated carbon made out of bamboo which is very good at absorbing various pollutants and gasses, especially odors in the air.

Bamboo charcoal absorbs cigarette smells, smoke smells, ammonia, carbonic oxide, benzopyrene, and other components of smog. It also helps remove air contaminants in your car that trigger allergies and asthma. Besides this, they also deal with mold, mildew, and moisture among other air pollutants.

You could actually find that all you need for your car is an air purifying bag and they are a much cheaper alternative to your conventional electronic air purifier. There are so many varieties out there and most of them will do the job but I have fallen in love with slickness and style of the Purggo Car Air Purifier Bag. Get a Purggo bag along with a typical air purifier bag like the Moso Natural which you can just chuck under your car seat and you are good to go.

The other thing you obviously have to do is keep the inside of your car clean. Take it to the car wash and just have the inside done every week or get a HEPA car vacuum cleaner if you have time to clean up on your own.

There a couple of other measures you can put in place like getting a professional car cleaning service if you have serious mold growth in your car but in a normal situation, the measures I have suggested here are more sufficient if implemented in conjunction with a good car air purifier.

Air purifiers have so many benefits. I learned and stumbled across many of them from my personal experience and research. Out of over 14 different types of air purifiers, each of them provides some form of unique benefit.

Air purifier benefits can be broken down into 2 main categories. The 2 benefits categories of air purifiers include health and wellness, and home care and cleanliness. Ultimately the main benefit of all air purifiers is improved air quality. These benefits vary depending on the type of air purifier being used.

Once you understand the benefits under each of the 2 categories, you can then see how they apply across different use cases and situations. The benefits are crosscutting whether you want to use an air purifier for your baby, skin improvement, in your bedroom or at the office.

That said because the various types of air purifiers are designed for different use cases you need to take note of your scenario and find the appropriate purifier for your situation to get the maximum benefit out of it. There are several things you can do to ensure you get the full benefit of your air purifier.

Let me start with my comprehensive list of benefits and then elaborate on how to you can get the most out of your air purifier. I have split the list into 2 major categories and together they make up 22 benefits in total. Without further ado here is my ultimate list of air purifier benefits.

Health & Wellness Benefits of Air Purifiers

1. Prevent Respiratory & Skin Allergies

If you find yourself sneezing when you enter a room, or your nose clogs up often and is always congested during certain seasons, you might be allergic to some airborne particles. Exposure to airborne allergens can also result in unexplained skin rashes and breakouts.

Out of nowhere while sitting at home or at your desk at work your skin could just start getting itchy or dry and this could just be because of allergens in the air. If any of these scenarios describe your experience, then air purifiers could help you.

Most air purifiers are designed to remove tiny particles in the air that are as small as 0.3 microns. A lot of these air particles include allergen particles the most common of which include pollen, dust and pet dander.

To deal with allergens, you can either go for a true HEPA air purifier or a Photocatalytic Oxidation air purifier (PCO). Just to be sure that you are allergic to air particles before going out and getting an air purifier, you can also get yourself tested for allergies. A good place to do this is at Personal Labs and you can get your test results within 34 hours depending on which test you take.

Should your allergy tests come back positive for any airborne particles, then its time to get an air purifier. HEPA air purifiers will get rid of allergens in the air by pushing air through a strainer like material which lets air through and traps ultrafine contaminant air particles. On the other hand, instead of trapping particles PCO air purifiers completely destroy allergen air particles turning them into water and carbon dioxide.

2. Improve Skin Health & Promotes Anti-Aging

As mentioned in the allergens section, air purifiers can help you minimize skin allergies by getting rid of allergens in the air. Air purifiers also contribute to reducing blemishes on your skin and keeping you looking young. This is achieved by air purifiers cleaning free radicals out of the air. How this works is that free radicals attack our cells and DNA and accelerate our aging process.

Free radicals are found in polluted air and many other sources. Once you place an air purifier in your home or office, it substantially reduces the number of free radicals in your air and with frequent use over time reduces your skins exposure and aging process. I talk about the skin health benefits of air in more depth here if you want to learn more.

3. Increase Life Expectancy

As air purifiers prevent the many harmful effects of poor air quality on your body you can expect to live longer. Our high school teacher often told us that every cigarette you smoke takes away 5 minutes from your life expectancy.

Now imagine all the nasty contaminants in the air some which are worse than second hand cigarette smoke. Once you start using an air purifier you can rest assured you breathe considerably less of all these harmful contaminants in the air that can cause you various fatal illnesses.

4. Lower Stress & Blood Pressure

Scientific studies show that air purifiers decrease both systolic and diastolic blood pressure levels. The studies show that indoor particle concentrations can be controlled favorably by air purifiers to improve endothelial function.

The endothelium is a thin membrane that lines the inside of the heart and blood vessel which contribute significantly to your blood pressure. If you are exposed to polluting particulate matter in the air long enough research shows that they increase your risk of cardiovascular events such as high blood pressure and stroke.

Higher blood pressure in your body occurs as a consequence of oxidative stress and systemic inflammation caused by pollutants in the air which lead to the dysfunction of the endothelium. Not only can air purifiers get rid of pollutants and subsequently lower your blood pressure, but they can also lower your stress levels.

5. Prevent Cancer & Other Diseases From Smoke Pollution

It is common knowledge that smoke from cigarettes can cause cancer. However, you will find that fewer people know that all other types of smoke such as smoke from cooking, wildfires e.t.c. also contain carcinogens. Besides cancer, smoke worsens preexisting conditions such as asthma and COPD.

Smoke can also cause nausea, dizziness, eye irritations, headaches, and fainting. Reports also show that long-term exposure to smoke can affect your mental health.

Most smoke particles are bigger than 0.3 microns and well within the range of what most air purifiers can filter. Taking this into account, it is easy to understand that air purifiers are very effective in dealing with all kinds of smoke particles.

Regardless, in addition to air purifiers, you need to take other measures such as smoke proofing your home or office environment to minimize the amount of smoke seeping into your home. Smoke proofing is not as complicated as it sounds.

It involves identifying areas of your house where smoke seeps through such as the underneath of your doors, around your windows and vents separating your home from your neighbors home.

You then seal the holes and gaps with insulation or sealant and add activated carbon filter screens for your vents and next to your windows and under your door so that smoke particles are trapped before getting into your home. By smoke proofing your house, you minimize the amount contaminants in your indoor air and enable your air purifier to give you clean and carcinogen-free air faster.

6. Preventing Bacterial And Viral Infections

Another benefit of air purifiers is that they take germs, bacteria, and viruses out of your indoor air. They can get rid of particles in the air that cause the SARS virus, the common cold, measles, or flu.

Air purifiers can get rid of viruses in the air using various technologies. Some come with an ultraviolet light component that destroys germs just like ultraviolet light from normal sunlight rays while other purifiers use more advanced technologies like thermodynamic sterilization (TSS) or PCO which completely burn viruses and bacteria in the air.

HEPA air purifiers are however not so effective at removing viruses and bacteria from the air because they are either too small to get trapped in a HEPA filter or those that do get trapped release endotoxins back into the air as they die on the air filter surface.

Endotoxins cause inflammation and to avoid their harmful effects, either replace your filter often, get a washable HEPA filter or get a combo air purifier that comes with both HEPA and ultraviolet light.

The other types of air purifiers that will get rid of airborne germs include ionic and ozone air purifiers. The problem with these purifiers is that they produce ozone which has harmful effects on your body and I generally recommend that you stay away from such types of air purifiers especially if you have children or people and pets with respiratory problems in your home.

7. Harmful Effects Of Asbestos And Radon Gas

Next to smoking, radon and asbestos are also leading causes of lung cancer. Asbestos causes two types of cancer namely, cancer of the lung tissue and mesothelioma, a cancer of the membrane that surrounds the lung and other internal organs.

Lung cancer and mesothelioma from asbestos do not occur immediately after initial exposure but appear after many years. Whats more, certain levels of asbestos may also result in a slow buildup of scar-like tissue in the lungs and in the membrane that surrounds the lungs.

As for radon, it is an odorless, tasteless and invisible gas that is almost everywhere outside and indoors. Enough research has shown and proven its carcinogenic impact on humans.

With asbestos, a standard HEPA air purifier can easily remove it from the air while for radon, you will need a HEPA air purifier with an activated carbon filter to absorb the gas.

For more complete removal of radon gas from indoor air, your air purifier needs to be accompanied by extra measures such as Radon Resistant New Construction (RRNC) or Active Soil Depressurization (ASD).

8. Reduce Static Electricity

Have you ever gotten randomly electrocuted when you touch someone or something? This effect is called static electricity and it happens because the air is dry. If you are able to safely use an ionic air purifier in your room, such a purifier can help reduce the level of static electricity indoors.

When the air is dry electrons (negatively charged particles) easily build up on your skin and clothes creating an imbalance of positive and negative ions and then when you touch something with a high opposite ionic charge you get shocked as the ionic balance is restored.

Once you put in place an ionic air purifier, it releases a large number of positive and negative ions into the air. Then a large number of these ions bond with the built-up static electricity ions and these ions, in turn, suppress the static build up on your skin and clothes.

One brand of ionic air purifiers I know for sure you can get that gets rid of static electricity is Sharp’s Plasmacluster Air Purifier range. I have inserted a video below for you to a get a clearer picture of how it works. It’s like magic.

Sharp Plasmacluster air purifiers include both portable car and desk air purifiers and larger units for your home and workplace. I generally do not recommend ionic air purifiers but if I were to get one, I would go with the Sharp Plasmacluster.

9. Boost Your Mood

Just as air purifiers reduce blood pressure and stress they clean chemicals out of the air that leave you in a dull mood. Having an air purifier in your home creates the same effect as when you go into the countryside and walk into the fresh unpolluted summer outdoor air.

Enough studies have shown how air pollution causes depression. Accordingly, all air purifiers types will more likely than not improve your mood by improving your indoor air quality. I have had no experience with this, but the type of air purifiers that I have found commonly recommended for boosting one’s mood are ionic air purifiers.

Ionic air purifiers boost your mood by releasing negative ions into the air that help balance positive ions emitted by appliances such as microwaves and televisions in your home and general air pollution. Negative ions cause biochemical reactions in the air which produce chemicals in the air that increase your serotonin levels which in turn boost your energy.

10. Increase Productivity

Once you install an air purifier in your home, you minimize the amount of time spent treating allergic reactions to airborne allergens. You can then use this time on more productive activities.

Besides this, a number of studies show that poor air quality has a negative impact on worker performance. Various air contaminants have been found to cause nausea, fatigue, and dizziness and these symptoms simply make you lose focus on your work.

This is where air purifiers come to the rescue. They get rid of fatigue causing pollutants in the air and subsequently boost your energy level allowing you to perform at your optimal level of productivity.

11. Improves Cognitive Function By Reducing

I found an interesting study from Harvard which shows that if you spend a day working in a space with improved air quality your cognitive function improves. The main air contaminants in your air  that inhibit cognitive function and even cause neural damage are Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs).

Not all air purifiers can completely get rid of VOCs as they have are mostly ultrafine particles and gaseous. So what you need is either a HEPA air purifier with an activated carbon filter or a PCO air purifier which actually completely destroys VOCs.

12. Improves Your Sleep

There are two ways air purifiers improve your sleep. The first is through their soft humming sound, and the second is through getting rid of airborne allergens. The soothing humming sound of an air purifier can block out sounds from outside that would otherwise wake you up.

As for allergens, these can cause nasal congestion during your sleep and entirely disrupt your sleep.

As you have seen earlier, air purifiers can get rid of allergens and by so doing reduce your adverse reactions to air pollutants and enabling you to sleep comfortably.

13. Improves Immune System Performance

Finally, when it comes to health benefits of air purifiers to me the most important benefit is that by providing cleaner air, they create an environment that enables you to have a stronger immune system. The causal effect between air pollution and the strength of your immune system is complex.

What is clear though is that our cells and immune system need oxygen to function well. Now if your indoor air is polluted according to the EPA, it becomes harder for you to breathe.

The harder it is for you to breathe the less oxygen your body can take in with detrimental implications for your immune system and a higher risk of you getting sick. With this in mind, the benefit of air purifiers is clear. They minimize pollution in your home making it easier for you to breathe and supply your body and immune system with sufficient oxygen for its proper function in protecting you from sickness.

Home Care & Cleanliness Benefits of Air Purifiers

14. Clean Indoor Air

When it comes to home care and cleanliness a major challenge with air quality is visible indoor air pollution. Have you ever walked into a room with tiny particles floating all around in the air or thrown yourself on a sofa and dust comes right out of it into the air? This is what I call visible air pollution.

Visible air pollution can come from various sources and result in thin films of dust settling on surfaces around your home. If you have this kind of air quality problem it can be rather unpleasant not just for you but also your guest and pets.

A lot of people will draw the conclusion that your home is unhygienic. There is a lot you can do to fix this kind of indoor air pollution but on top of all the other measures, air purifiers really go a long way in ensuring you don’t have so much dust on your surfaces and particles floating around your home.

The type of air purifiers that will deal with floaters in your home and give you visibly clean air include HEPA air purifiers and PCO air purifiers. With the exception of a few devices like the Sharp Plasmacluster Air Purifier, I generally stay away from ionic air purifiers because they produce an irritant called ozone.

Most ionic air purifiers also result in extra layers of filth on surfaces around you because of the way they remove harmful contaminants from the air. An important point to remember with air purifiers in keeping the air in  your home clean is that you still need to maintain general cleaning of your home. You cannot just let filth build up because you have an air purifier, this will defeat the whole purpose of your air purifier. 

15. Prevent & Get Rid Of Bed Bugs, Dust Mite & Small Insects

Another form of visible indoor air pollution is insects. Your home could be faced with mosquitoes and gnats flying around or less visible but irritating bed bugs or dust mites. The good news is that air purifiers can help. They won’t get rid of large bugs but they can deal with the tiny ones.

Most HEPA air purifiers can trap bed bugs and dust mite but only if these bugs are airborne. Air purifiers more directly clean your air of fecal matter released by dust mites into the air which is the main cause of allergic reactions to dust mites. Indirectly, air purifiers clean the air of your dead skin flakes and pet dander which dust mite feed and thrive on and thereby creating unfavorable conditions for dust mite to proliferate in your home.

For gnats and mosquitos, HEPA and PCO air purifiers can be quite effective at clearing them out of your home. In fact, some air purifiers are designed with an additional feature to specifically catch insects. These purifiers contain a UV light that draws insects close enough to their air extraction vents and sucks them up and kills them within their filter compartment.

If you need an air purifier that doubles as an insect catcher, check out the Sancusto Air Purifier or the Sharp Plasma Cluster Air Purifier.

16. Prevent Mold And Mildew Growth On Walls

Mold and mildew are one of the few instances whereby you can use an ozone purifier. However, you need to know how to use ozone air purifiers. Because of the dangers of ozone, you have to run an ozone purifier while no one is at home and turn it off an hour before anyone gets back home.

Despite its dangers to human health, ozone is a powerful cleaning agent and very effective against mold and mildew. Other types of purifiers that can get rid of airborne mold and mildew before it grows on your wall include PCO and HEPA. PCO air purifiers will completely destroy mold and mildew in the air. HEPA air purifiers capture spores that are as small as 0.3 microns which is more than enough for mold and mildew spores.

For best results with HEPA air purifiers go for true HEPA air purifiers rather than other types of HEPA purifiers. Also look for HEPA air purifiers with antimicrobial filters for killing mold spores once they hit the filter and HEPA filters combined with activated carbon filters to neutralize the musty odor caused by mold.

17. Improves Air Circulation

Not all air purifiers will improve air circulation. To get improved air circulation you will need air purifiers that operate using a fan to suck in and blow out air. You will get fans that will improve air circulation in HEPA, PCO, UV light and ozone air purifiers.

However, other types of air purifiers such as ionic purifiers are fanless and purify the air by using a process of convection. So if you want the added benefit of improved air circulation while purifying your air an air purifier with a fan will be your best bet.

18. Gets Rid Of Odors

Another great function of air purifiers is in the removal of odors. If you get the right air purifier, you can get rid of fragrance, cooking, weed, mold, tobacco, wildfire, pet odor,  and vaping smells among others. When dealing with odors HEPA air purifiers alone will not really help you as they fare poorly when it comes to capturing gases.

HEPA purifiers alone are pretty much useless and what you will need is a HEPA air purifier that comes combined with an activated carbon filter. Activated carbon is very good at absorbing gases which is the form that odors are normally in and hence its strong ability at removing odors.

Another very effective type of air purifier for odors is a PCO air purifier. Like it does with other air contaminants it outright incinerates gas and odor particulate, freeing your house of odors. Finally, with strong precautions not to use it when pets and people are in your home, you can use an ozone air purifier to get rid of all sorts of odors.

As I pointed out for mold and mildew, ozone also works for odors because of its strong antibacterial and cleaning agent properties. It will leave a fresh smell in your home.

19. Extends HVAC Filter Life

Air purifiers can be a great supplementary tool if you have an HVAC. HVAC filters are not necessarily designed to purify air and their filters wear out faster when outdoor air quality is really poor.

By placing an air purifier at the point where air enters your HVAC you reduce the burden on your HVAC by your air purifier filtering out a lot of particulates before they hit your HVAC’s filter. In this way, your HVAC filter life is prolonged as it has fewer particulates to filter out, reducing its wear and tear over a given period. 

You can also get an air purifier add-on for your HVAC like the Aprilaire 5000 Air Cleaner.  Check the video below for more detail. HVAC air purifiers are actually called whole house air purifiers. You can find out more about HVAC air purifiers here.

20. Get Rid of Filth Created By Pets

As a dog and cat owner, I know how much filth pet dander and hair can live in a house. Moreover, with cats, you also get odors and cat litter dust pollution from cat litter boxes.

Personally, I think the worst pets when it comes to pet dander are birds, especially parrots. Whatever pet you own an air purifier will serve you well and many companies now manufacture air purifiers specifically for pets. When it comes to pets you will do well with either a HEPA or PCO air purifier.

21. Slow Down Dust Build Up

Perhaps I should have mentioned this with benefit number 15 but I felt this deserves its own mention. All types of air purifiers are able to deal with dust and slow down dust build up in your home.

This means your home stays clean for much longer before you have to pull out your dusting equipment and clean up. Keeping this in mind, do not buy an air purifier or send it back  immediately if you find that the one you bought cannot capture dust. This a basic benefit every proper air purifier comes with.

22. Minimize Office & Workshop Pollution

Both white collar and blue collar workers are at risk of facing poor air quality in their work spaces. If you work in an open office there are all kinds of air contaminants you can get exposed to.

To mention a few, if your office space has carpeting, with enough foot traffic all kinds of dirt gets trapped in there and can easily become airborne before anyone cleans the carpet. A lot of printing also goes on in corporate offices and the dangerous dust produced by paper going through printing machines goes unnoticed.

If you are blue collar worker working in an environment like a workshop, ventilation and air purification is even more important. You could be in a woodworking shop where you face a lot of sawdust or in body shop facing paint fumes and asbestos pollution. Whatever the case if your work environment is indoors, in addition to your mask and other protection an air purifier will significantly improve the quality of the air you breathe.

For blue-collar workers working indoors look for a heavy-duty air purifier that covers over 3000 sq ft. On the other hand, if you are a white collar worker and your office cannot provide office-wide air purification, a desk or table air purifier will really go a long way in preventing you from inhaling the various air contaminants in your office space.

How to Get The Most Out of Your Air Purifier

Now that you know all the benefits of air purifiers, to get the maximum of these benefits, the first and foremost thing you have to do is to ensure you have the right sized air purifier for your home. Some homes may be extremely large and will need multiple air purifiers for better room coverage.

If your room is too big for your air purifier it will not clean your room entirely and you will continue to breathe poor air. My rule of thumb is to have an air purifier that covers at least 300 sq ft more than your actual room size.

I have found that air purifiers that use Photocatalytic Oxidation to purify air purifiers air do the best if you have a room size greater than 1000 sq ft. For rooms smaller than 100 sq ft, wither a PCO air purifier or a true HEPA air purifier can give you the maximum benefits of clean air.

In addition to room size, you also want to position your air purifier properly. Don’t place an air purifier where its air vents are obstructed by walls, furniture, and other objects. Place your air purifier in a place where it can easily and freely blow and suck air without anyone or anything tempering with it.

Another mistake people make is to think that once they get an air purifier they no longer need to clean their home as much. Don’t make this mistake, your air purifier is supplementary to cleaning your home and you have to continue cleaning your home and keeping it clutter-free. By doing this, your air purifier has less work to do and will provide you with much cleaner air faster.

Besides cleaning your home, you should regularly maintain your air purifier. Clean your air purifier and replace your air filter regularly as per your device’s manual. This will not only ensure your device is performing optimally but also prolong its life.

Finally, close all windows when your air purifier is running and where possible run your air purifiers 24 hours a day. If you cannot run your air purifier 24/7 get one that has an automated switch you can program to turn your device on or lower its circulation speed as and when you leave your home and come back.

There are many more things you can do to ensure you get the maximum benefit from your air purifier. Nonetheless, if you follow the above general tips your device should perform sufficiently for you to realize all the critical benefits. If you would like to see some air purifiers I highly recommend for use in rooms, have a look at my post here. 

I was watching TV the other day and as I was changing channels I bumped into Jill Michaels on the Wendy William’s show talking about a study that shows  how good air quality and air purifiers are good for skin. Given my interest in air purifiers I immediately went and did some deeper digging on this. I discovered a whole new side to skin care I never thought of and in case you ever wondered if air purifiers can help improve your skin  here is everything I found and pretty much everything you need to know. 

In summary, are air purifiers good for skin? The few studies assessing the impact of air quality on human skin all show that poor air quality causes poor skin. They show that poor air quality can result in extrinsic skin aging and eczema. As air purifiers improve air quality, they are thereby good for human skin.

A study on a group 400 women in a German village found that air pollution was significantly linked to the presence of coarse wrinkles and pigmented spots.  Out of this group the women who lived in an area with increased levels of soot and traffic related pollution (TRP)  were found to have 20% more pigmented spots on the forehead and cheeks than those who were not. 

Other particulate pollution,  besides TRP, were also correlated positively with the amount of pigmented spots on the women’s faces. The findings of this study provide strong evidence that poor air quality can result in your skin aging and potentially poor skin.

Given the strong evidence of the damaging effects of air pollution on skin, in the rest of this post I share in more depth how poor air quality damages your skin and shortens your life span. After which I show you how you can keep your skin looking smooth and younger for longer using air purifiers and without having to uproot your life to the countryside. By the end of this post you should be well versed in one of the best kept skin care secret.

How Poor Air Makes You Age Faster

Air pollution is considered to be one of the largest environmental health threats. Many of us consider air pollution to be an outdoor challenge. However, air pollution can occur inside the home too. Fitness fanatic Jillian Michaels wrote in her recent book (available at Amazon) about how indoor air can sometimes be more harmful than outside air.

Air pollution is often associated with things like gas stoves, badly installed wood-burning units with poor ventilation etc. What we often overlook is pollution from our furnishings combined with the fact that between the times we spend at home and at work we spend a total of about 90% of our time indoors in constant interaction with our furnishings.

Things like carpets, cabinets and other furniture in our homes produce airborne chemicals like benzene, ethylene glycol, or formaldehyde which are very poisonous. The process by which these gases are produced is called “off-gassing.” Also, four of the top ten gasses produced by our furniture are considered “acute” hazards or irritants.

Indoor air pollution is not only a contributor or cause of diseases like lung cancer, asthma, and other infections but can also have detrimental effects on your skin especially through allergic skin reactions. What’s more, it also quickens the aging process of your skin and body.

For example, Benzene, when released in large quantities can cause cell deformities. It can cause bone marrow to produce insufficient red blood cells. It also damages the immune system by affecting blood levels of antibodies causing a reduction of white blood cells.

How Air Purifiers Help You Look Younger & Live Longer

The link between the quality of air and one’s health is very clear. Polluted air will have within it chemicals that can cause lung diseases and various other cancers which can reduce your lifespan. However, there is another danger of air pollution, whether it be outside air or inside air pollution, and that is its ability to age humans faster.

As you probably know by now eating well, good genes and reduced stress levels prolong the aging process in humans. What comes as a surprise to me is that air pollution from our own homes, workplaces and other indoor places we spend the bulk of our time in also contribute significantly to how quickly we age. Before you know it one day you wake up with wrinkles on your neck’s skin and around your face and you wonder how this all happened so fast.

To use a crude example, as rust attacks our cars and causes them to age much faster than the cars natural aging process so do free radicals in our DNA. Free radicals attack our cells and DNA and can accelerate the aging process. This defined as the accumulation of free radical damage. Free radicals are found in polluted air and many other sources.

Ethylene glycol is an example of a free radical that can be found in indoor air pollution generated by our furniture. By reducing the level of intake of free radicals we can dramatically retard the process of aging. The accumulation of free radical damage is not an instantaneous process but occurs over time. Which means there is enough time to mitigate how quickly this reaction deteriorating your skin and causing you to look older.

While none of us may be in the position to alter our genetic composition, which plays only about a 50% role in our aging process, we can most certainly control the other contributing 50% comprised of the food we eat and the quality of the air we breathe. Air purifiers can be an effective solution to reducing free radicals contained in particulate matter found in polluted air. Not all air purifiers can reduce particulate matter, therefore you need to be very aware of the type of air purifier you choose for the best results.

Air Purifiers That Can Help You Keep A Youthful Skin & Live Longer

1. HEPA Air Purifiers

High-Efficiency Particulate Air Purifiers (HEPA) are very effective in reducing particulate matter in the air. Developed in the 1940s HEPAs have since gained popularity and are used widely including in medical settings and can trap about 99.97% of particulate matter larger than 0.3 microns. HEPA filters filter out bacteria, chemicals, and viruses that are nor visible to the naked eye. Moreover, they do this without releasing harsh chemicals and other dangerous by-products.

HEPA filters comprise of thin pieces of fibrous materials folders into flaps. These flaps retain particles as the air moves through them pushed by the fan. To maintain the high levels of efficiency of HEPAs you will have to replace them every two to three years.

Small particles that pass through the flaps are retained through diffusion. Diffusion is one particulate matter becomes trapped by gas particles and the fibers contained in HEPAs flaps. Larger particles passing through the HEPA are retained through impaction, where they collide the fibers and stick with them. This type of air purifier is ideal and will serve you well if you are trying to avoid or reverse the negative effects of poor indoor air quality on your skin and slow down the aging process.

2. Ionizers

Other types of air purifiers are called Ionizers, also known as negative ion air purifiers. These rely on chemical injection to purify the air. Ions are particles that occur naturally and can either be positively or negatively charged. Evidence of the presence of ions in our homes is evident in the shock you get when you walk around the leaving room or bedroom carpet with socks.

The shock you get is the evidence of ions being present at the time. Negatively charged ions can attract pollen and dust. Once the ion gets bombarded with the particulate matter it either sticks to the ground or wall. This is because ionizers do not have the ability to absorb or eliminate harmful particles.

Ionizers have the tendency to, therefore to mask particulate matter instead of getting rid of them completely. They transport the particles from the air to solid objects like the walls or ground leaving you exposed to them. With time these particles can become loose and re-enter the air. So for anti-aging purposes its best you avoid ionizer air purifiers.

3. Electrostatic Filter Air Purifiers

Another type of air purifier with similar properties to a HEPA air purifier is an Electrostatic filter air purifier. Electrostatic filter air purifiers do not have the traditional air filters like HEPA air purifiers do and instead have filters that use an electric charge to attract and trap particles as they move through the air and in through the device.

The particles gain a new charge and are attracted into the air purifier and stick to filter compartment within the purifier allowing only purified air to escape the filter. They capture 99% of particles over 0.1 microns. An example of this type of air purifier is the WYND air purifier and is a great option for purifying your air in small spaces and when you are on the go.

Electrostatic air purifiers, however, require frequent maintenance to operate effectively. Once your filter is saturated you have to replace it for your device to work effectively again.

Regardless, electrostatic air purifiers like the WYND purifier are among the most diverse air purifiers and can remove everything from pet dander to smog and pollen contained in the air and the very chemicals resulting in free radicals that damage your skin and cause you to age faster.

There are other variations of air purifiers available in the market like ozone air purifiers and UV air purifiers and I would not recommend the use of these types of air purifiers as they have other side effects. To supplement your anti-aging routine rather stick to the HEPA and Electrostatic air purifiers. Another type of air purifier you can also try is a Photocatalytic Oxidation (PCO) air purifier. To see what are the best options  of air purifiers you have in more detail click here. 

Air purifiers not only have the ability to provide clean air but by removing pollutants from the air they lengthen our lives by reducing the risk of allergies, certain cancer, and lung disease while they simultaneously help retard the aging process of our bodies and skin. By investing in a good quality air purifier you are investing in a simple cost-effective proactive process to ensuring a longer and healthier life while preserving and prolonging your skin and youthfulness.

We all can achieve the benefits of the countryside’s clean air without having to abandon our city life and can achieve it all in the comfort of our homes and workplace simply by investing in a high-quality air purifier. That said, remember that air purifiers are just a supplement to your anti-aging routine. They will not on their own slow down your aging and you have to use them in conjunction with a healthy lifestyle.