The reason why you are here is either you have bought an air purifier, and your problems are not fixed or you want to buy an air purifier and don't know if the air purifier is useless or not.
If you’ve bought an air purifier, chances are that you’ve bought the wrong air purifier. I know, it is harsh but true. Between the fact that most air purifier companies are selling you products by scaring you, selling devices with exaggerated features that you don’t need mixed in with the reality that 99 percent people use their air purifiers wrong – your air purifier is pretty much useless. Okay, time to find out why your air purifier is useless with Omnichannelgal.
An air purifier is a simple device in itself. It’s got a fan that sucks in air and blows it out and has a filter(s) that cleans that air. There is absolutely nothing else to it. But within this simple action lies the essence of life and death for your lungs. We spend nearly 90 per cent of our time indoors and the air is more polluted than the outdoors. Thus the air purifier has to do a fantastic job to get clean air in your room. Especially those in this list of best air purifiers for pets and best air purifiers for smoke.
Is air purifier useless? - Knowing the filters
Ignore any company that sells you air purifiers giving seven- layer, nine-layer or even 11-layer filtration. What you need for most cases is just two or three filters. More layers doesn't mean more fresh air.
True HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Air) Filter: Most will be rated to remove 99.97 per cent of particles that are 0.3 microns and larger. Without a True HEPA filter, this air purifier is just make use of the fame of HEPA filter and bluff you.
Pre-Filter: These trap larger particles before they get to the main filter, thus extending the life and efficiency of the HEPA Filter. Best if this is a separate filter that can be removed and cleaned.
Carbon Filter: These have activated carbon within, thus removing odors and chemicals like cigarette smoke, formaldehyde, paint fumes and kitchen odors.
Related post: Best air purifiers in 2019.
Is air purifier useless? - Understanding how air purifier works
An air purifier’s job is to clean the air and make it pure. How long it takes to do that and how well it maintains it even if the door is opened once in a while – are determined by the following.
CADR stands for Clean Air Delivery Rate and this tells you the volume of filtered air that the device can blow out. This is critical as a higher CADR number is what you’re looking for.
ACH is Air Changes per Hour. Each Purifier comes with a room size rating. What’s important is how quickly can the purifier change all of the air in that given space per hour. ACH rating of six to eight is a must.
CFM is Cubic Feet per Minute and measures how many cubic feet of air move through the unit per minute. You need a higher CFM.
Wasting money
I’ve seen offices place air purifiers in open cabins. I’ve seen huge hospitals place little air purifiers in lobbies and I’ve seen schools put them in classrooms. Each of them is wasting money and lungs as an air purifier needs certain critical dos that must be adhered to. If you have large room, buy large room air purifiers, not small ones.
Is air purifier useless? - Learning the critical things
You have to shut the door of the room for the air purifier to make any difference. It’s impossible in a classroom where the door opens multiple times or even in open cabins or large lobbies. Next, clean the pre-filter and replace the HEPA filter exactly at the time it’s specified. Place it in the most uncluttered area of the room so that it can suck in more air. Run it continuously when you’re in the room. Monitor its efficiency with an external AQI monitoring device kept on the opposite side of the room.
Very few brands of air purifiers specify all the things I’ve listed above. That's very unacceptable.
Related post: Do air purifiers remove dust?
