You have choices when purchasing a HEPA air purifier.
Here are some useful tips to help you choose the right HEPA air purifier.
A true-HEPA air purifier has a folded, paper HEPA filter. All (or almost all) air is passed through the filter.
True HEPA air purifiers captures up to 99.97 percent of particles as small as 0.3 microns, which include a range of allergens and odors.
About ten years ago manufacturers started adding folded plastic filters and calling them washable HEPA filters. Here’s the problem with folded plastic HEPA filters: dust sticks in the folds no matter how much you wash a plastic filter. Mold spores cling to dust. Water makes mold spores grow. So, after you wash a plastic HEPA filter and replace it in the air purifier, it will blow all those growing mold spores into your air.
To combat adding all these molds spores to your air, some manufacturers added ozone generators. Yes, ozone in high concentrations will kill bacteria and mold spores, but at those levels, it will also kill you. Ozone is not needed in an air purifier.
Charcoal or carbon can be added to the true-HEPA paper filer to removed a lot of the fumes, vapors, and odors we have in our city air. You can remove those fumes and odors by adding charcoal or carbon to your HEPA air purifier purchase.
Buy the right size air purifier for your room. The cubic feet the machine will clean is written on the box.
It’s fire season again (still?). so we need to be prepared. What I do is turn my old Honeywell on HI during the day (it’s loud) when I don’t use my bedroom. During the night I move the HEPA to my office, again on HI. I’m writing this post during the worst air pollution San Francisco has ever known from the fires in Northern California. I have maintained particulate levels for 2.5 under 25 with outdoor levels over 300.
There are better air purifiers offered for sale than those sold by a lot of MLM companies.
Here’s an article from Consumer Reports.
Learn more about Particles and Why They Matter here.