Air Purifier: Is It Worth It?
Homeowners throughout Nashville and the rest of the country have been spending more time indoors, and many are considering the health of the air they breathe. This can be especially true for family members that suffer from asthma or are particularly sensitive to seasonal allergies.
As you consider the best ways to clean the air in your home, perhaps even using air quality devices in your home like an air purifier, you may find yourself asking, are they really worth it? The answer is, it depends on the type of air purifier. If you are considering a portable air purifier to increase the indoor air quality in your home, there are a few things you should know first.
Single Room or Whole Home Air Purification
There are a wide variety of indoor air contaminants that could be plaguing the health of your home, like carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, radon, pet dander, smoke, and other airborne particles like volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
These indoor air pollutants can enter your home in a number of ways (which we’ll get into later), but removing them from the air you breathe can in fact be done with an air purifier. That’s right — yes, air purifiers work, but how well a purifier works can depend on the type used.
Single Room and Portable Air Purifiers
These small devices utilize a few different processes to clean localized air in the room they are in. HEPA filters, active carbon, and negative ionization are some of the most common technologies used in these devices.
Whole Home Air Purifiers
A whole home air purifier combines the existing filtration system of your heating and cooling system with similar purification technology to the previously mentioned portable devices. Whole home air purifiers can use HEPA filters, active carbon, ionization, and even UV light technology to remove pollutants from the air as they enter your heating and cooling system, meaning all of the air in your living space is filtered and purified at a single source.
The Cost of Keeping Your Whole Home Healthy
A portable or single room solution to increasing your indoor air quality may provide some benefit, but only in the room it happens to be placed in. In order to use portable air purifiers to clean the air in your entire home, you’d have to buy multiple units, as well as pay for the extra electricity to run them. Plus, you’ll have to deal with the noise they make!
When you compare these expenses with the cost of installing a single whole home solution, as well as the added benefit of prolonging the life of your HVAC system and their no-noise-added quiet operation, a whole home air purification system makes more “cents” and more “sense”.
Understanding the House as a System
Though there are indoor air contaminants that can originate from inside your home, it is integral to your future indoor air quality to ensure that your home has an air tight seal to control the flow of air in and out of your living space. Tiny holes and gaps in the construction of your home can allow dirt, dust, allergens, pollution, and humidity to infiltrate the air you breathe.
Consider the tires on your car. If there was something wrong with one of the wheels causing you to replace the same tire over and over again, you’d want to resolve the wheel issue first, right? Whatever air purification equipment you are using in your home, without closing these gaps through professional air sealing, your purification equipment will be working much harder than it needs to.
A Comprehensive and Lasting IAQ Solution
E3 INNOVATE can help you diagnose your indoor air quality, temperature and humidity, and energy cost issues through a comprehensive energy audit. Then, we can help you plan for your home improvement project and recommend the best home air purifier for the health and safety needs of you and your family.