Choosing the correct air purifier can be like walking through a minefield. The final decision can be made easier by understanding your needs and what the air purifiers can offer you. There are plenty available, all offering something different and this can make it even harder. How do you decide?
Not all air purifiers are made the same, nor do they filter the same or last the same amount of time. Your first step in deciding which air purifier is for you is determining what you want to get out of it, what is the need. Are you simply wanting to remove the larger particles in the air such as dust? Or are you trying to remove the finer and much smaller particles from the air? The larger particles are usually cleaned out of the air using a prefilter such as a HEPA filter. But it is important to know that it wont necessarily catch the smaller lung penetrating particles such as viruses, some bacteria and germs, some home dirt mite allergens, cat allergens, smoke, soot, fumes, and smog.
When dealing with allergies you need to look at the sensitivity and severety of the reaction. This will giude you to the right air purifier for you. It is not simply, "I have allergies and therefore I need the biggest and strongest machine". You will end up pay too much for what you really need. For example, people will vary in the severity of the reaction to say dust mites. If you dont have a strong reaction to dustmite then why would you fork out a lot of money for the stronger machine when the smaller and much cheaper oone will be sufficient? Having said this you will still need to be mindful if you have say aesthma. In this case you would want to avoid the triggers such as gases and odours. In this case it's recommended they purchase an air purifier with a gas filtration system to manage gases and odors more effectively.
The location of the machine is also a consideration when selecting your machine. You need to know where you intend putting it. If it is a smaller room that is relatively sealed from outside air then a smaller machine wil be enough. If however it will go in a high traffic area where it will be working hard then a larger machine will be required.
You will also need to decide the effectiveness level needed for the job. To this end you need to look at the amount of air the machine can clean in an hour, as well as the percentage of pollutants it can remove as the air passes through. For instance, when the particle count per cubic foot of air heading into the air purifier is 1,000,000 dust and the particle count from the air coming out after it has passed via the filters is 300, than the efficiency from the air purifier would be 99.97%.
A filter change light is also handy so that you can easily know when it is needed. It can be hard to judge the effectiveness of your machine without it...can you see particles less than 5 microns in size? You will need to be able to track the life of the filters and the light is extremely handy for this.
There are still a few other things you need to compare, such as the mobility and weight of the machine, very important if you intend to move it around a lot. You will also want to compare warranty and the reliability of the machines. We recommend machines using the media charged filters as they are highly effective and dont emit ozone.
Before you buy anything online, make sure you check Dan Wilcox's excellent Air Purifier Reviews, and Air Purifier Blog.
