Home Air Purification

Have you ever asked yourself the question - do I really need a home air purifier? After all, your house may be clean as a whistle and your cleaning schedule is maintained like clockwork. Yet you still may suffer from some allergen floating around in the air of your clean home. So how does the air in the home get contaminated?

Homes of today are relatively airtight. If some contaminant gets in your home from the outside and your home is one of the energy efficient varieties, then it may be that the contaminants have no way out of your home once they are in. Fresh outside air cannot come into the house and refresh the air that is already in the house because the house is so airtight. Adding an air purification system to your home will remove contaminants that cannot be naturally removed by air replacement from the outside.

In order to clean your home, you may use a variety of cleaners and chemicals. Believe it or not, these cleaners are toxic and the fumes from them have an adverse effect on the air quality of your home. Good air purifiers remove chemical contaminants from cleaners and even air fresheners.

Many homes have pets. Pet dander is a main cause of allergen contaminants in the home. The dander sticks to the pet hair and the pet hair is all over the house. Certainly the more you clean the house from pet hair the better, but often some dander is left airborne or on surfaces that you may have missed cleaning. Use a HEPA vacuum regularly and consider adding an air purifier as needed.

Although not a specific cause of allergen contaminants in the home, forced air furnaces tend to re-circulate air, good or bad, in the home. An older home with a forced air furnace will draw in outside air through gaps in the structure and windows, so that helps a little, but newer homes are more airtight. A forced air furnace filter therefore must be changed often, every three months or so. A small micron particle electrostatic filter is recommended.

Then there are contaminants like cigarette smoke and particles from the outside environment to consider. Some of these contaminants may be chemical in nature as from car exhaust or from some close by industrial activity. Other contaminants may be from plant growth like airborne contaminants from the goldenrod plant. Air purifiers can remove these contaminants from the air in your home.

It may be that you need more than one air purifier in your home just because of the floor plan layout of your house or from the sheer square foot size. Air purifiers typically have a specified coverage area that they will perform well in. Pay attention to these specifications when looking to purchase an air purification system.

There are many air purification systems on the market today. The air purification systems vary significantly in performance and price too. Higher end air purifiers like the IQAir offer supreme performance but are pricey. Other air purifiers like the Alen 350 are a good balance between cost and performance and are a good value.

For smaller rooms you may want to consider a unit like the Whirlpool Whispure as they perform well in a small area.

In general though, a good air purifier must have a HEPA filtration system on it as well as an activated carbon filter. By using one or more high quality air purification systems in your home, your home will be as clean as it looks and you will rest well knowing so.