Do Air Cleaners REALLY Work?
Ever been in a home or office that was so dusty you could literally feel yourself ingesting the dust every time you inhale? It’s happened to me a few times and I can tell you – after seeing digital photography of what dust particles actually look like – it’s enough to make me wanna go out and purchase an air purifier.
If this sounds like you, an air purifier could be on the best investments you ever made. But where to begin? Unlike a lot of home products, you can’t judge the effectiveness of how good an air purifier is by its price alone. Nope, one of the best methods to compare air purifiers is by their “Clean Air Delivery Rate” or CADR. According to the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (www.aham.org) the CADR should be listed on the package of the model you are considering.
You should see three numbers listed that refer to purifier’s ability to get rid of household dust, tobacco smoke and pollen. The CADR numbers can ranger from less than 50 for small purifiers to more than 300 for deluxe models. Keep in mind that some models are more effective at removing smoke while others may be more effective at removing pollen. Even though there are other polluttants in an average home — such as mold – most air purifiers do a good job on all pollutants in general. Which model of purifier you ultimately choose should be the one that rids the type of particle you are affected by the most.
For an air purifier to be considered affective the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers recommends that the clean air delivery rate be able to clean at least 2/3 of the square footage of a room. So let’s say your bedroom measures 10 feet by 12 feet and you’re allergic to pollen. You would want to select an air purifier that has a pollen CADR of at least 80. You would also want to select a purifier with a higher CADR because it will clean the air faster. But be prepared — “faster” also equates to using more electricity.
High Efficiency Particulate Arresting (HEPA) filters are another consideration. According to www.airpurifiers.com HEPA filters have been around since the 1950s when the US Atomic Energy Commission needed something to remove small particulates that are radioactive. Since then HEPA air purifiers have been using this technology to clean a variety of rooms and homes. HEPA products are also one of the many techniques and products used by Allergy and Asthma doctors to help alleviate the symptoms of those conditions. Imagine a filter that only allows very tiny particles to pass through. If we placed a single sheet of this HEPA paper in front of a fan constrained as it would be in air purifiers, very little air would be able to pass because of the small size of the holes. In addition, air purifiers made like this would need to have the filter changed often because the holes would plug rapidly. Now if we double the size of the sheet we would get twice the airflow and filter life. You can not keep growing the sheet larger because it would be impractical. Instead let us try folding the paper back and forth so that we can present a very large surface area to the airflow and thus the HEPA made this way would be efficient. This is how real-world HEPA filters are made in real HEPA systems. Some have as much as 40 square feet of the filter material folded into the HEPA section. As a side note the material from which HEPA is constructed is either fiber or paper-like on one hand or a polymer on the other.
There are a lot of companies to choose from that deal with quality air purifiers. Run a search engine for “air purifiers” for your specific area.
Remember, do your research, don’t go with the lowest price, because cheaper doesn’t necessarily mean better, check your CADR numbers and select the air purifier that is best suited for the type of pollen or dust you’re suffering from the most.
