Posted by QuickReadAbout.com Staff in If you’ve been blowing your nose until you resemble Rudolph and your head feels like it is about to explode from your sinus headache, you may be suffering from allergies to the pollutants in your home. Someone has probably mentioned that an air purifier will help you feel better. However, what does an air purifier do?
One of the most important functions of an air purifier is its ability to remove pollutants such as cigarette smoke, dust, pollen, mold, and pet dander from the air. Another reason people use these machines is to remove odors. There are several types of air purifiers and each works a bit differently. These filters in these purifiers include: the ionizer, the HEPA filter, the combination ionizer/HEPA filter, the activated carbon filter, and the antibacterial filter.
The ionizer is one of the most popular air purifiers. Unlike other purifiers, the ionizer does not actually remove pollutants from the house. Instead, this machine makes the pollutants so heavy that they fall from the air and drop to the floor. If you have allergies, you will need to use a vacuum that has a HEPA filter to clean the floors before the room is truly allergen free.
If you don’t want to pull out your vacuum, you may be thinking that you should simply use a HEPA filter instead of an ionizer. HEPA filters suck dirty air in, run it through the filter, where most pollutants are trapped, and then blow the clean air back into the room. However, a HEPA filter can’t clean the smallest particles from the air and isn’t great at removing odors from the room. To get your air really clean, you would need a HEPA filter combined with an ionizer or with an activated carbon filter.
The activated carbon filter used to be extremely popular. This filter is great at getting smells out of the air. However, it doesn’t do as good a job when it is trying to remove pollen, dust, mold, or pet dander. Now, this filter is usually used along with a HEPA filter instead of being used by itself.
Finally, for people concerned with bacteria or germs, an antibacterial filter is an important air purifier. These filters are especially popular in situations such as a home daycare, where people are being exposed to many germs. However, while these filters are very effective at removing germs, they are rarely used on their own. They work best when they are combined with a HEPA filter.