What air purifier to use at home?
What should I look for in an air purifier? What does ionized do? I see different type of air filters and has different features. I see some with ionized and others are not, some HEFA filter, some not. What should I look for, I greatly appreciate it!
Alan:
What type of filter depends on what you are trying to get out of the air and for whom you are cleaning the air. For example, if you want to remove allergens from the air because someone has asthma, then you have to stay away from ionizers or any machine that produces ozone. You will also want to stay away from UV lights, because they can also emit ozone and ozone can cause asthmatics problems.
All the makers of the machines rate them in square feet but that is useless because we live in cubic feet (3 dimensions) so for a HEPA kind of machine you need to look at the CFM of the motor and use that to evaluate how quickly it will clean the volume of air in the room (volume = width + length + height of ceiling in room)
All that being said what I have in my house is a machine called the Austin Air HealthMate. I actually have several of these in my house. I like them because they move lots of air, only need the filters changed every 5 years, and don’t use lots of electricity. They are also all metal which I like because plastic off-gasses. We use them to remove the dust and odors at our house. My oldest one is almost 10 years old so they last forever. I will give you a link so you can read about them. I am also giving you a link to an article that tells you how to evaluate air filters to decide what is right for you because what is right for my house might not be what you need at yours….but I still love my Austin Air