Should you leave your air purifier on all day?
The air in your home environment is constantly changing. Every time you do something like turn on the stove, use scented products, or even pet your pet, indoor pollutants are released. These pollutants become part of your home's air unless you use an air purifier to remove them from your environment.
In addition, if you open a window or door, you're also bringing outdoor pollutants into your home. In fact, it's likely that outdoor pollutants have already infiltrated your home because not every entry point is completely sealed.
The only way to purify the air and remove these pollutants, in addition to an efficient ventilation system, is with a dedicated air purifier.
To understand whether you should leave your purifier running all the time, or if you should turn it off periodically, it's important to understand what happens when you turn off your air purifier.
The work of an air purifier doesn't really stop. Even the most effective air filter can take hours to completely clean the air in a room. So when you turn off your purifier, pollutants will start to accumulate again, which in turn makes it more difficult for the purifier to do its job when you turn it on again.
It is recommended to leave your air purifier on constantly. This means that the filter is not only keeping the air clean, but it is also removing any new pollutants that may have entered your home.
It may be tempting to turn off your air purifier at night. It is easy to assume that because you are sleeping, no new pollutants will enter your home air. However, this is incorrect.
Indoor air pollutants such as pet dander, dust mites, and mold can quickly build up when you sleep and your air filter is off. Without an air filter to clean the air, you may suffer from sleep deprivation due to increased allergy and asthma symptoms.
In fact, if you only have the budget to purchase one air purifier, we recommend placing it in your bedroom. We spend about a third of our lives sleeping, and the quality of our sleep has a significant impact on our overall health. By installing an air filter in your bedroom, you can remove harmful pollutants that may be preventing you from sleeping and reducing the quality of your sleep.
It is also worth noting that you should change your air purifier's filter regularly. The buildup of particles means that your filter is not working effectively, negating most of the positive effects of using an air purifier. Most filter replacements are inexpensive and will ensure that your air purifier is working efficiently.
Are air purifiers good for health?
The answer is yes. Using an air filter indoors can have a huge impact on improving the air quality of your home environment. This in turn can have a significant impact on your health, especially for your respiratory system.
However, it is crucial to take the time to choose the right air purifier. Some can have adverse effects on your health because they produce byproducts such as ozone or nitrous oxide.
What are some common home air quality issues?
Dust and dust mites
Pet dander, hair and odors
Plant or pollen allergies
Unpleasant odors come from a variety of sources, including cleaning fluids and cooking byproducts
Sneezing and coughing
Itchy skin, sore eyes, irritated eye membranes
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from chemicals
Asthma attacks
Ultimately, the only real solution to eliminate these problems is to eliminate the source of the air quality problem. Sometimes this is not feasible, such as getting rid of pets is a rather extreme way to remove pet dander from the environment.
In this case, an air filter is your best choice. Not only will it relieve symptoms, but it will also capture or remove pollutants from the air, creating a cleaner, healthier environment.
Air purifiers with HEPA technology filters can remove up to 99.95% of air pollutants in your home environment.
What are the health benefits of using an air purifier?
One of the main reasons to buy an air purifier is to relieve asthma symptoms. 1 in 12 adults suffer from asthma, a common condition with a variety of symptoms, from coughing and wheezing to full-blown asthma attacks. The root cause of asthma is inflammation of the bronchial tubes. This means that pollutants in the air can further irritate an asthma sufferer's respiratory system and increase the frequency and severity of symptoms.
Using an air purifier that removes both small and large pollutants from the atmosphere can make a significant difference for asthma sufferers and relieve their symptoms.
But it's not just asthma sufferers who can benefit from an air purifier; let's look at some further benefits:
Removes Harmful Chemicals from Your Home Environment
Your home environment can contain a range of harmful chemicals. Every time you use cleaning products, they release a variety of toxins into your home, such as ammonia, chlorine, and phthalates. In small amounts, these toxic chemicals are relatively harmless, but daily exposure can cause serious health conditions, such as cancer, tumors, or neurological disorders.
Additionally, any time your home's doors and windows are open, outdoor gases such as nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide can enter your indoor space. This can be a particular problem if you live in an area with heavy motor vehicle traffic or dense industrial buildings. Exposure to carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide can increase your risk of developing conditions such as dementia or Alzheimer's disease.
If you choose an air purifier specifically designed to purify the environment of gaseous pollutants, such as an adsorption filter that uses an activated carbon filter, it will remove most of these chemicals from the air, and the air in your home will be cleaner and fresher.
Neutralizes Odors in Your Home
Air filters not only remove harmful chemicals from your home, they also eliminate unpleasant odors. The chemical process by which compounds such as gasoline, benzene, and formaldehyde break down can release unpleasant odors into the environment. These chemicals are called volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and are commonly found in common household items such as paints, varnishes, aerosol sprays, and even air fresheners.
VOCs not only produce unpleasant odors, but can also cause nausea, headaches, and breathing difficulties. Most of us know that it's a good idea to open the windows when a room has just been painted. The smell of new paint can cause headaches. This is due to the volatile organic compounds that paint releases into the atmosphere.
However, if you open your windows, you are also causing more outdoor pollutants to enter your home.
Using a combination air purifier with a filter and activated carbon filter will not only capture harmful gases and odors, but also process any particles in the air, creating better air quality and a healthier environment.
Improves sleep quality
Clean air has a huge impact on sleep quality. It is easy to assume that when you are sleeping, the quality of the air has no effect on your health. However, this is not the case. Air pollutants such as mold, dust, pollen, and pet dander can trigger allergies, hay fever, and asthma, which can cause coughing, sneezing, itchy skin, and nasal congestion at night.
The best way to combat this problem is to use an air filter in the bedroom. As mentioned earlier, we spend up to a third of our lives sleeping or trying to sleep, so an air purifier placed in the bedroom can have a huge impact on our lives by reducing groggy days and restless nights.
Eliminate Harmful Contaminants from Building Materials
Whether you live in an antique or modern home, the building materials used to construct your home can release harmful compounds that can harm your long-term health.
The biggest culprit for this is asbestos particles.
Asbestos roofing materials and insulated pipes were widely used from the 1940s to the 1960s and are found in many older buildings. As asbestos ages, it begins to release dust into the surrounding air. These particles, when inhaled, can cause scarring of the lungs, known as asbestosis. Other symptoms may also occur, such as swelling of the neck or face, loss of appetite, and difficulty swallowing. It also increases the risk of lung cancer.
Using a HEPA air filter to capture and remove these particles is a safe and effective way to reduce the chance of harmful effects and improve air quality.