A common question I have come across about air purifiers is whether they are able to cool a room down.
You might be asking this either because you don’t want a device that will make your room cold or because you are hoping an air purifier can also cool your room in addition to cleaning indoor air.
Whatever your reasons, at some point when I was new to air purifiers, I also thought about this and eventually, through my experience and research, here is what I discovered.
In short, can air purifiers make a room cold or help cool a room? Normal air purifiers cannot cool a room or make it cold. Some air purifiers that have a fan may cool a room but minimally as they do not generate sufficient air flow or contain a cooling unit that can cool an entire room. With exception of some devices, air purifiers are designed to clean air and not cool air.
It’s easy and logical to think that air purifiers can cool a room because the first thought that comes to mind when you hear the word air purifier is a device that has some kind of fan that pushes air around. At least those were my thoughts initially.
However, as you start getting familiar with air purifiers you will find some air purifiers don't even have fans and rely on the process of convection or ionization to clean the air.
What's more, for air purifiers that do have fans, the air they push out back into your room or home comes out of the device with so little force and energy you can barely feel anything.
For you to feel any cooler from most air purifiers, you would have to sit right next to the device to cool yourself. Keeping this in mind, I am now going to explain in detail why air purifiers cannot cool the air in your room or make your room cold.
Then once you get this, you can look at my suggestions on the next best alternatives if you want to purify and cool your air at the same.
Why air purifiers won’t keep your room cold
Air purifiers are broadly classified into two categories, Filter and filterless air purifiers and from my observation, these categories can be generally split into air purifiers with fans and air purifiers without fans respectively.
Filterless Air Purifiers and Air Purifiers Without Fans
With a few exceptions, most filterless air purifiers do not even contain fans. Some examples of filterless air purifiers without fans include ionic air purifiers and Ultraviolet Light (UV) air purifiers. We can immediately disqualify these air purifiers from any hopes of cooling anything as they simply do not have any form of cooling technology on them.
Filter Air Purifiers and Air Purifiers With Fans
As for filter air purifiers, I am yet to see one that does not have a fan. Filter air purifiers work by using a fan to suck the air out of your room and into themselves, through their filter and finally push this air back into your room or home. Accordingly, these are the type of air purifiers most people will think can also cool the air.
Now the thing is because these purifiers do create an airflow and some sort of breeze, theoretically they should cool air.
If we look at things scientifically, when you sweat you feel cooler when there is a breeze because the breeze helps evaporate the water on your body and carry away the heat from your body faster. So if a purifier has a sufficient breeze it can make you feel cooler in this way.
Furthermore, if you understand how convection works, a breeze or wind helps hot air in your room to rise and can push hot air out of your room and cooler air takes its place.
Again, if your air purifier's breeze was strong enough it could cool your room through this process. However, most air purifiers are not built to push air at a level that can use convection to cool your entire room.
Air purifiers with fans simply do not come with the same airflow capacity as air conditions and normal fans. Even if they did have the capacity of a normal fan, there are some hot days I have gone through whereby even a fan was useless in cooling my room and for this exact reason, an air purifier is pretty much ineffective in keeping your room cool.
Air Purifiers Do Not Have a Cooling Unit
In addition to having a fan, especially on a really hot day, to effectively keep your room cool you will need to have some kind of cooling unit. This why air conditioners work. Your air conditioner does not just blow air but it cools it down first and then blows it out into your room repeatedly to a point it can even make your room feel like a refrigerator.
Even though they may come with a fan, air purifiers are simply not built with a cooling unit. For this reason, normal air purifier on their own cannot essentially cool your room down and keep it cold.
What Can You Do Instead To Cool Down Your Room?
Now, you possibly asked this question thinking there is some way an air purifier could keep your room cool. Whether you did or didn’t if you want to purify your air and keep your room cool at the same time, you will be glad to know that you can achieve this without having to install an air con in addition to an air purifier.
Get a Basic Fan In Addition to Your Purifier
The first thing and probably the most cost effective thing you can do is to get a simple portable fan and run it in the same room as your air purifier. If you don’t live in an area that gets extremely hot, this is enough to keep the air in your room clean and cool. However, be careful with fans, as they can cause you a sore throat especially if you sleep with one on .
Get a Portable Air Cooler With Your Air Purifier
There are so many portable air coolers out there. These devices are designed with the same cooling mechanism as an air con and are battery powered, allowing you to take them anywhere easily. They are very suitable for scenarios whereby you don’t have an air con in every room or you moved into an apartment block that does not allow you to install an air con.
An air cooler will provide you with sufficient cooling in a single room, while you run your air purifier. One of the best air coolers I have seen is the Zero Breeze air cooler. It is such a powerful device for its size, and it comes with a speaker and USB port, and you can take it with you on camping trips. I discuss more about air coolers here.
Besides a portable air cooler, you can also get a portable home air con that you can move around your house easily. You just plug this thing into the power and have an exhaust that you can stick out of your window to get rid of the warm air. These generally work very well and a good portable air con you can get at Amazon is the Honeywell MO08CESWK. It also comes with a dehumidifier which is quite useful if you live in a humid environment but if you do not need this feature you can simply keep it off and switch it on in occasions when you do.
Just like I described for fans, you just run your portable air cooler or portable home air con while your air purifier is running.
Get a Combo Air Purifier
Lastly, as I alluded to earlier, there are some air purifiers that can cool your air. These types of air purifiers are called Combo Air Purifier Coolers. Some air purifiers I found on Amazon like the Dyson Pure Cool or the Delonghi Air Purifier, Heater And Cooling Fan HFX85W20C offer a fan than that's strong enough to cool an entire room. But like I said earlier any type of fan will be limited in effectiveness if you stay in an area that is extremely hot most of the time.
Because fans are sometimes limited in how well they can cool the air, I have tried to look for an air purifier that comes with a cooling unit. If you have found one, post it in the comments below but I am yet to find an air purifier that comes with a cooling unit.
The only thing I have seen is an air con that has air purification features like an air filter that actually traps dangerous contaminants and an ionizer which neutralizes dangerous air particles.
An example of this is the LG S-Q12BTXD Split Air Conditioner 1.0T (click to see at Amazon) but it has an ionizer and generally I suggest you stay away from ionizers due to ozone.
Now when it comes to combo air purifiers, I would rather go with a separate portable air cooler as it becomes very difficult to maintain these devices. Imagine replacing a filter in your air con. At times you may have to call a professional to come in and fix it.
The other thing you want to avoid with combo devices is a device with an ionizer as ionic air purifiers produce a harmful byproduct called ozone.
So between the Dyson and Delonghi air purifiers, I mentioned here, go for the Delonghi as it has no ionizer and lastly I would avoid the LG air con. Some people can stand ionizers but if you have anyone with respiratory problems in your home, you would rather stay away.
Finally, the route I would go to keep the air in my room clean while keeping my room cool at the same time is the separate portable air cooler route.
This makes sense if you are in a position where you cannot afford an air con or you simply don’t want to install an air con or HVAC system in your home.
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