How to eliminate 95% from consideration now.
Which air purifiers are best?
It’s good to have choices, but not when you’re unable to choose confidently.
Comparing air purifiers for the home is confusing for many consumers.
The bewildering claims made for each type may make it difficult to focus on the best air cleaner for your needs.
If you’re already familiar with the secret to top performing home air cleaners then you’re ready to use that standard to rate each type of air cleaner.
More importantly, you’re ready to completely reject poor performers.
True HEPA Air Purifiers – The Industry Standard
Unsurpassed filtration efficiency
Only HEPA air filters meet a verifiable performance standard.
HEPA filters remove 99.97% of 0.3 micron particles, slightly smaller than tuberculosis bacteria at 0.4 micron.
One misconception is that HEPA filters perform less well with smaller particles. In reality, HEPA efficiency is higher with smaller particle sizes.
An effect called Brownian diffusion helps trap particles smaller than 0.3 micron in the HEPA filter, enabling it to capture bacteria and viruses.
Because of this incredible efficiency the Hong Kong Hospital Authority chose HEPA air cleaners like the IQAIR HealthPro at right to control the spread of the SARS virus.
HEPA filters may last two to five years. Thus, your actual cost for exceptionally clean air may be quite low in comparison to air cleaners that require filter replacement every few months.
HEPA Type – Poor Imitations Of The Real Thing
Reject cheap air cleaners
A mark of cheap air purifiers, HEPA type filter media may provide no performance indications or specify a standard clearly less than true HEPA.
These air cleaners will not give you significant air quality improvement.
Why? Because total system efficiency is often no greater than 50%.
The Holmes air purifier at left claims a filter efficiency of 99% at 2 micron. This is much larger than the most harmful fine and ultra fine particles.
Filters like these may be completely unable to collect the sub-micron to 2.5 micron particles that most seriously affect your health.
Even larger particles up to 10 microns, like pollen, may not be removed effectively due to filter bypassing common in cheap air cleaners.
Short filter life is also common. The greatest scam on the market is to sell cheap air cleaners and bilk customers later with costly filter replacements.
Electrostatic Precipitators – AKA Ionic Air Purifiers
Reject ionic air cleaners
Ionic air purifiers use electric charges to remove allergens and irritants. They have no effect on gases and odors.
Particle collection efficiency tends to be no greater than 80%.
Studies show efficiency dwindles to as little as 20% in as few as three days as collector plates load with particles.
Regular cleaning is a must for continued performance, yet many owners complain it is difficult cleaning collector plates.
These models are praised for being silent. This is a marketing ploy designed to present as an advantage the fact that they move little air.
Ionic air cleaners also produce ozone which is lung damaging and elevates sensitivity to allergens and irritants. This is the last thing anyone with respiratory problems should be exposed to.
Air Ionizer Purifiers – Wishful Thinking At Best
Reject air ionizer purifiers
Ion generators, or air ionizer purifiers, release charged ions into the air that attach to particles, statically charging them.
There is no method of capturing these charged pollutants.
Instead, they stick to surfaces such as walls and furniture or combine with other particles and settle on room surfaces.
This produces the common problem known as “black wall effect” buyers of these units complain about.
The most significant problem with air ionizers is the health threat posed by the “black wall effect” taking place in your lungs.
Studies have shown electrically charging very fine particles results in their higher deposition rate in the lungs compared to uncharged particles.
So using ion generators may actually increase the dose of particles to the lungs, making your situation worse than if you were using nothing at all.
Ozone Air Purifiers – Hazardous To Your Health
Reject ozone machines
Proponents of ozone generators claim ozone oxidizes pollutants, reducing them to water and carbon dioxide.
In the real world such textbook reactions rarely happen. Instead, numerous by products are created.
These byproducts can be more dangerous than the original pollutants.
Ozone cannot distinguish what is and is not a pollutant. It reacts with almost anything it contacts, degrading materials and creating additional pollutants.
Supporters claim ozone kills bacteria but deny it kills cells in your airway. They reject all scientific evidence and warnings that ozone is harmful.
Sellers of ozone machines are perpetrating a fraud. They get away with it in the US because no federal agency regulates these products. On the state level, at least California has banned their sale.
An ozone generator is ineffective and exposes you to danger.
UV Air Purifiers – Is This Extra Really Necessary?
Is UV light worth the cost?
UV air purifiers create ultraviolet light that may destroy some biological pollutants like viruses and bacteria. Higher doses of UV light may be reqiured than than a home air purifier
UV air cleaners have no effect on gases or particles. UV germicidal irradiation should not be used to replace filtration.
Because HEPA filtration captures most biological pollutants, adding UV light sterilization offers minimal benefit.
Because mold spores can cause allergic reactions whether dead or alive, UV sterilizers or sanitizers by themselves will not help your allergies or asthma.
Photocatalytic Air Purifiers – New, But Is It Better?
PCO is of limited benefit
Photocatalytic air purifiers are promoted to destroy gases and odors.
They have no effect on particulates despite the fact that some marketers would have you believe this.
Titanium dioxide (TiO2) is used as a catalyst in the presence of UV light to cause a chemical reaction between volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and water molecules in the air.
Ideally this reaction reduces gases and odors to water vapor and carbon dioxide.
Unfortunately, textbook reactions are not always the result.
Incomplete destruction of VOCs results in creating additional pollutants that may be more irritating and potentially toxic than the original compounds.
Activated Carbon – Chemical And Odor Control
Activated carbon for gases and odors
Gas phase filters remove gases and odors and are often added to HEPA filtration to enhance air cleaning.
The most effective gas filtration is by activated carbon. It removes up to 60% of its own weight in chemicals.
A deep bed of activated carbon is best. That is why the best home air purifiers include many pounds of activated carbon.
Thin activated carbon pads are practically worthless. They neither have sufficient activated carbon to be effective nor do they supply the dwell time needed to remove pollutants.
Rather than a competing technology, gas filtration is complementary to HEPA air purification. Combined with HEPA air filters it creates the most effective air cleaning available.
So, What’s Your Next Move?
Why not learn more before choosing?
Buying air purifiers for the home is a serious matter.
Please carefully consider your needs and research what will meet them.
I cannot overemphasize how important this is.
I face MCS, allergy and asthma daily in my family.
By carefully comparing air purifiers for the home I proved to myself that HEPA filters combined with large capacity activated carbon chemical removal was best for my own needs.
Why not take the time now to consider convincing proof why hepa filters are best?