Are you considering a portable HEPA filter air purifier for relief of allergy or asthma symptoms? Would you like to know whether it would be a good investment? What can you do in your home to get the greatest symptom relief? If buying a portable HEPA filter air purifier is part of your strategy how can you be certain you’ve chosen well?
These are important questions both from a health perspective and financially, since high quality air purifiers are not inexpensive.
I have faced these very questions myself. My wife suffers from allergies, asthma, Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS), as well as fibromyalgia. Air quality makes a tremendous difference for her ability to engage in normal activities around the house, let alone out of doors.
You Can Sink Or Swim
The good news is that buying a portable HEPA filter air cleaner can be a good investment. Expert opinions hold that they do reduce airborne concentrations of many irritants. This can bring a measure of relief. However it is also agreed that you cannot rely on them entirely.
Think of it this way. A ship at sea has pumps to remove unwanted water that reduces its buoyancy. But this doesn’t enable the ship to remain afloat with a gaping hole in its side. Better to have structural integrity than the best pumps in the world.
Your home air can be likened to that ship and its pollutant load to the water. Is it better to have the best portable HEPA filter hard at work pumping pollutants out? Or to maintain a home that doesn’t introduce those pollutants in the first place?
Lifestyle Changes Are First And Best
Keeping pollutants out will involve certain changes, some of which may even be called sacrifices. Easy enough is purchasing cleaning and personal products that are fragrance and dye free. Discontinue the use of so called “air fresheners” that only mask odors by introducing fragrant chemicals to the air. Candles, whether natural beeswax or not, also add soot and unburned hydrocarbons to the air.
Many people have found that removing carpets is of great benefit. Not only do they outgas volatile organic compounds, they harbor dust mites and their allergens. They also retain pet dander and pet allergens, increasing the total quantity of these.
More difficult is the necessary step of eliminating smoking from the household. Even if smoking is relegated to outside, the smoker brings in on their person enough residue to be a problem. Some studies have shown that negative health effects in children are not improved at all when smoking is done outside versus inside.
Another difficult choice is removal of a pet. Pet allergens, especially cat allergens, can exacerbate all other allergies. Even if you are not allergic to cats, you have a high likelihood of developing one. As many as 80% of persons with a cat in the home show signs of cat allergy whereas only 10% to 20% of the population at large has cat allergy.
All the above mentioned pollutant sources are things for which people often wish to buy a portable HEPA filter air cleaner. They are also the sorts of things that stream a steady load of pollutants greater than any purifier is designed to handle. That is why air filtration cannot be your first and only choice. You must take responsibility for air quality in the home and remove the things that cause your health problems.
More Information About Buying A Portable HEPA Filter Air Purifier
A portable HEPA filter air purifier will now be a much better health aid once you have eliminated the bulk of pollutants from your home. That is really the purpose of its design, to purify the air to a higher degree than good housekeeping alone can achieve.
What should you consider when buying a portable HEPA filter air cleaner for allergy relief?
Overall capacity should be first and foremost for two important reasons.
First you want a unit that can give multiple air changes per hour (ACH) for the size room you’ll be using it in. The more times the room air passes through the filter the cleaner it will be and the better relief you will get.
Second, you want a unit that will give you the needed ACH on its lowest or intermediate settings. These are its quietest settings and noise is often a complaint with portable HEPA air purifiers.
There are of course many other important considerations beyond the scope of this article. Please review these articles about buying a portable HEPA filter air cleaner and HEPA air filtration.