Do you or your family members frequently catch colds? Or do any of your allergy symptoms heighten even when it is not allergy season? If so, you might have poor indoor air quality as a result of dust, dirt, mites, and other respiratory allergens.
Having good indoor air quality is crucial to maintaining your health. And the best way to improve and maintain good indoor air quality is to invest in the right air purifier for your home.
Air purifiers have come a long way in terms of technology. The market has expanded and diversified, so you will find numerous options as you search for the perfect air purifier. Every compamy claims to be the best, but how do you select the best air purifier for your home? What critical features must a high-quality, advanced air purifier have?
In this blog post, we answer these questions for you. We will shed light on 3 critical features to look at in an air purifier before buying.
HEPA Filters
Although an air purifier will have different features, having an air purifier with an H13 True filter is essential. True or genuine HEPA filters can also be referred to as H11 or H12 filters. However, HEPA H13 filters are within the highest tier of HEPA and can trap up to 99.95% of particles with a minimum size of 0.1 microns in diameter. In other words, they are really efficient like True HEPA filters.
So, what is HEPA filtration?
HEPA filters were first introduced in the 1940s by the United States Atomic Energy Commission. The filters were tested to protect the soldiers from exposure to radiation in WWII. Although the filters did not protect the soldiers from radiation, it filtered out several harmful airborne particles, which is why HEPA filters were eventually used for indoor air filtration.
The technology in itself is very simple and straightforward yet highly effective. High-efficient particulate air (HEPA) filtration uses random and dense fibers arrangement to catch the airborne particles from the flowing air using the physics of particle motion.
Air purifiers with HEPA filters have become the industry standard. While you are looking for an air purifier, be sure to buy one that offers HEPA filtration technology.
Air Purifier Design
Apart from HEPA technology, the air purifier design is also critical to consider. Most air purifiers need to be compliant with HEPA standards. However, this might give a false sense of security.
The only air purifiers that are worth your investment provide HEPA filtration, but the design of the air purifier itself needs to implement the technology. The major flaw with several air purifier designs is leakage. The design is not airtight, which leaves room for dirt, dust, and unfiltered air to escape and continue to circulate the air.
Cracks, tiny openings, and space around the HEPA filters leak the unfiltered air back into the space. This indicates that most HEPA air purifiers don’t work at full capacity due to the design. The efficiency of any air purifier is usually 80% or less.
All in all, you need to carefully look at the design to ensure that particles will not escape before you purchase an air purifier.
Charcoal-based filters for gases and odors
If you are aiming to remove gaseous and odor-creating particles, you need to go beyond HEPA filters. You need to choose an air purifier that provides charcoal-based filtration.
Harmful gaseous compounds, odor-creating particles, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) aren’t easily filtered through HEPA filters. However, these compounds and particles can be easily filtered with activated charcoal filters.
In charcoal-based air purifiers, the design will have a carbon material (charcoal) filter. As soon as this carbon material comes in contact with oxygen, it opens numerous pores, thus increasing the surface area. When air passes through this activated carbon filter, harmful gaseous compounds, odor-creating particles, and VOCs stick to the carbon and thus get filtered from the air.
Hence, if you are concerned about removing VOCs, harmful gaseous compounds, and odor particles, you must buy an air purifier that offers charcoal-based adsorption filtration.
Bottom Line
With increasing pollution, dirt, and dust, it is necessary to buy an air purifier. However, when you buy an air purifier, you need to consider HEPA filtration, Air purifier design, and potentially charcoal-based adsorption filtration method.
If you want to buy an air purifier backed by well-researched technology and efficient design, check out Medify. Medify air purifiers offer the highest tier of HEPA filtration at the best prices. So, you can breath easier.
Head to Medifyair.com to shop and learn more about indoor air quality.
