What reason did you have in purchasing an air purifier? In most cases it was probably in getting relief from some kind of allergy, asthma..or just for clearing the inside air of smoke and odor.
Before you rely and expect on getting cleaner and fresher indoor air from your air purifier, I'd like for you to consider the following issues...and how they relate to your air purifier...
1) What are you sensitive to?...
2) Reducing the concentration of pollutants in your home...
3) The dispersion of the pollutants in the room...
4) The persistence of pollutants...
5) How often is your air being cleaned?..
6) How efficient is your air purifier?
How does this relate to air cleaning benefits from my air purifier?...you may ask.
Each person has their own "tipping point." Personal health and environmental factors make this a moving target. Certain allergens may trigger a reaction today, but not tomorrow. It all relies on your total load and concentration of irritants and physical stresses.
The goal of air purification is to gradually replace contaminants with clean air, keeping them below the threshold at which you get a reaction.
Why dilution?...and not "elimination"? Because particles and gases are not "static", standing still, in order for the air purifier to trap them one by one. Normal particle motion disperses them equally throughout your room air.
Therefore, clean air exiting your air purifier is almost instantly re-contaminated by the still un-cleaned air. You can't hold clean air on one side of the room, while cleaning the air on the other side.
That's the reason why your air purifier should run continuously. Constant treatment reduces airborne pollutants and keeps them at a low level.
Countering air cleaning is the re-introduction of new pollutants. The continuous bombardment of these airborne pollutants is like a leak in a boat. In time the boat sinks. It's the same principle with your indoor air. You need to be one step ahead of these new pollutants.
Just as the boat needs steady bailing to stay afloat, your room air needs continuous cleaning to stay healthy.
This is where ACH, or air changes per hour, comes into play. ACH indicates how fast you can bail your room air of airborne pollutants.
ACH is determined by dividing the cubic feet of cleaned air your air purifier can deliver in one hour by the cubic feet of the room. Say your room is 12 x 16 with an eight foot ceiling. That's 1536 cubic feet (12 x 16 x 8). Say your air purifier is rated to deliver as much as 200 cubic feet per minute (200 CFM) or 12,000 cubic feet over an hour. Dividing 12,000 by 1536 reveals your air purifier can deliver 7.8 air changes per hour in this room.
That air purifier would be an excellent choice for that room. Most experts agree that 6 ACH is needed for those with severe respiratory problems. At least 4 ACH is recommended for typical allergy relief. In any case, never less than 2 ACH for any benefit at all, and then only with the most efficient air purifier.
Which brings us to the issue of "actual" efficiency...not "theoretical" efficiency. Theoretical efficiency is what manufacturers claim their machine can do in based on one hundred percent of filtration. But "actual efficiency is how much of the actual air is drawn through the filter and treated. Not all the air passing through an air purifier may be cleaned. Some may by-pass the filter, or the machine simply can't remove one hundred percent of the particles passing through.
The lower the total system efficiency, the more times the air needs to pass through the air purifier to achieve the same cleaning result as a higher efficiency unit. This is why I recommend using only air cleaners with proven high system efficiency, such as the IQ Air HealthPro air purifiers. They do the job most effectively with HyperHepa filtration, high CFM and room coverage.
