As society advances, our city becomes more and more populated and polluted at the same time. Like many other problems, city people often find it hard to breathe the air due to severe air pollution. So, we desperately seek some solutions and often ask, are room air purifiers effective?
We have come to know a lot of benefits of air purifiers, but the questions remain because those benefits are described for lab environments. That is why we began our research and wanted to find out how good it works in real life. Wait no more, and let’s start our journey to know the facts once and for all.
Why Air Purifier Is Needed?
There are lots of reasons to use an air purifier every day and keep our respiratory system healthy. But let’s see the main reasons behind using such a device.
- The first one is filtering out the large particles as well as Nano organisms that trigger asthma or allergies.
- Secondly, air purifiers can create a soothing environment in your room, making it more comfortable and a good place to sleep like a baby.
- Thirdly, you should use an air purifier for its capabilities to filter out harmful fumes and cigarette smoke keeping you safe from lung diseases.
- Fourthly, it can create an airflow inside a room that has closed doors and windows preventing suffocation.
- Finally, an air purifier can even trap and kill harmful insects, including mosquitos, as well as germs and bacteria keeping your family members safe from several airborne diseases.
Note: Those merely cover the main reasons, and you can read our article on why we use an air purifier for more details.
Are Room Air Purifiers Effective?
The short answer is yes, room air purifiers are effective, but we urge you to know more details on the topic. Because generalized thinking might give a wrong impression on air purifiers, for example, you can’t expect to filter out large and small particles from the air with an activated carbon filter. So, let’s see which type of air purifier filters are effective at performing which task.
Normal or HEPA-like Filters:
If you have come across an air purifier that features a HEPA-type or HEPA-like filter, you should know that it does not have the real HEPA filters. These are affordable filters but are not very effective at cleaning the air. From lab tests, they turned out to be around 30% effective at cleaning particles from room air.
HEPA Filters :
This type of filter is a bit expensive, but they are the industry standard and more than 98% effective at cleaning large and small particles from the air. An air purifier that comes with a HEPA filter can catch as small elements as 0.3 microns from the air, making it the most popular choice. But that can prove to be useless to severe asthma and allergy patients, and you should check out the next filter type.
HyperHEPA Filters:
So, this is based on the technology of HEPA filters but with more effectiveness and stats than the HEPA filters. You can expect more effective cleaning from HyperHEPA filters and buy one of these for severe asthma cases. So, if you have lung disease, asthma, or allergy problems, you must go for this type of filter.
Activated Carbon Filters:
The areas where toxic fumes or odor is a common thing or homes with smokers; those three types mentioned above won’t do much good. So, you need to buy an air purifier that comes with an activated carbon filter that can effectively filter out the toxic fumes and cigarette smoke, making your room air more breathable than ever.
Air Ionizers:
Some manufacturers offer air ionizers, and they claim that their air purifiers ionize the particles. As a result, the particles get stuck on any surface making the air clean, and the device won’t require any maintenance like the others. The truth is that it can do something like that, but the process creates ozone in your room environment, which is bad for your health. So, we don’t recommend this type of air purifier, no matter how effective it proves to be.
UV Light Purifier:
Some air purifiers come with a feature of purifying the air with UV light. This is actually an additional feature with the HEPA filter and activated carbon filter that kills germs and bacteria in the air.
So, those are all of the types of air purifiers that you can choose for a specific room. However, if you need something for your whole house, you can consider industrial-grade HVAC systems that are the best at purifying the air.
Note: So, now you know that different types of air purifiers are effective at filtering different types of elements. If you need more convincing before making the final decision, you can check out the benefits of an air purifier.
How Do I Know If My Air Purifier Is Working?
This is a very important question because air purifiers are designed in a way that requires very little to no maintenance. So, if the filter is filled or something else happens, you will see that the device is turning on, but the air is not purifying. Follow the below points to make sure that your air purifier is working perfectly.
- The first and most common thing that happens with every air purifier is the saturation of the filter. After running for some time, the filter gets filled with particles and can’t filter anymore. So, you can buy such air purifiers with filter indicator LEDs or buy any model and check the filter from time to time manually.
- But the method above is not the perfect one because you may see everything is fine and the air in your room still won’t be clean. So, you should use air quality indicator devices that are sold separately. Many air purifiers come with such a monitoring system, but we don’t recommend you rely on them.
Those 2 are the ways you can tell if your air purifier is working or not and now, let’s clear our ideas by knowing the answers to some questions about the air purifier and then wrap up the article.
Frequently Asked Questions
While doing the research, our team came to know about several questions that people ask frequently. Below, we have tried to answer some of the most frequently asked questions: are room air purifiers effective?
Do air purifiers use a lot of electricity?
Do you need an air purifier in every room?
Is it good to sleep with an air purifier?
Final Thought
Purifying the air with an air purifier is not a new concept, and the technology has matured a lot. With satisfactory reviews from thousands of customers and hours of testing, we are now confident. So, we hope that the information we have provided above is helpful in removing your confusion and answering the question: are room air purifiers effective?
