Air purifiers are among the most important things that we should have in our house. However, we should know whether air purifier is really needed in our situation. There are several factors why we should or shouldn’t have air purifiers. It is generally agreed that indoor air quality is lower than the outdoor. We should consider using air purifiers if we have pets, a smoker in the family, someone with asthma and someone with allergy symptoms. Spores of mold and mildew could also be eradicated with air purifiers slowing down their overall growth. It is important to know that air purifiers don’t really the same types of pollutants. There are different types of air purifiers and they don’t work similarly in cleaning up particulates and dust.
Some air purifiers are only effective in removing bigger particles, such as spores, pet dander and pollen, but not bacteria and virus. If we believe that we have problems with the last two, it is important for us to have a high performance air purifier. Another thing to consider is to know how big the air purifier should be. In general, air purifiers should be used for individual room, instead of the entire room. Some air conditioning units have air purification feature, but they usually don’t work as well compared to dedicated air purification units. The effectiveness air purifier also depends on the internal air circulation. If air doesn’t circulate well, the unit would only purify a small area in the house.
Some air purifiers use ozone and homeowners may be concerned whether it’s a good thing to use inside their house. In general, ozone is a molecule with three oxygen atoms, instead of two, like in a common oxygen molecule. Just like normal oxygen molecule, ozone is also colorless and tasteless. However, we may smell a slight hint of ozone, similar to what we smell during thunderstorm. Ozone can be produced by lightning and at certain level, it is quite harmless. Even at an acceptable quantity, ozone is already able to purify air.
Another concern is when we should regularly clean the filter in our air purifier. This could depend on the type of air purifier and the size of our room. Some purifiers will need to be cleaned and changed monthly, while others could be more often. Days before the scheduled replacement, we should check the filter to determine whether it’s dirtier than expected. The performance of air purifier depends on the degree of maintenance. There are different models of air purifiers and there’s no a proper standard on how much we should pay for them. However, high performance and high quality models usually cost much more than low-performing models.
