Do Air Purifiers Actually Work?

There’s a lot of debate on whether or not buying a home air purifier is actually worth the money. The answer isn’t always clear and if your home is positioned in an area that experiences little to no industrial pollution, you have little to no allergy issues, no one in your home smokes, you have no pets, and you are capable of keeping your home flawlessly clean, you probably won’t benefit much from an air purifier. Doesn’t sound exactly like your situation? Yeah, that’s not the case for me either, so let’s discuss this in more depth.

Before answering the question in the header, we have to consider whether there is an actual problem. Luckily for us, science has come a long way and we have many bright people studying the effects of air pollution. We know for a fact that particulates in the air cause major health issues including cardiovascular illness, respiratory illness, additional stress on the heart and lungs, damaging cells, accelerated aging of vital organs, loss of lung capacity, shortened lifespan, etc. The list goes on and on and if you’re curious, you can read more about the myriad of health effects that air pollution causes here.

Since we can viably prove negative health effects caused by the air we breathe, we can now decide how effective air purifiers actually are. Answering this question is a little tricky, though, and will vary depending on the air purifier you decide to use. For the most part, though, we can undeniably answer the question with a big fat YES.

We’ve already discussed the methods air purifiers use so we won’t go into much detail here as you can simply read up on those above, however, there are some very convincing methods of air purification that are scientifically proven to be effective.

Let’s take a look at HEPA air filters. To be classified as a HEPA air filter and get that shiny little badge of air purifying honor on the box, the filter must be capable of removing 99.9% of all particles larger than .3 microns in size that pass through it. That means that your HEPA air filtering air purifiers are guaranteed to be capable of ridding the air of harmful particles.

Those thermodynamic sterilization systems we discussed before? They are guaranteed to kill mold spores, bacteria, and viruses. These systems literally work by incinerating harmful things in the air!

Like I mentioned before, answering this question isn’t easy, but for the most part, most people stand to benefit greatly from buying an air purifier and utilizing it properly in their homes. How effective they really are depends on which type of air purifier you’re using, it’s build quality, and if it’s capable of reducing the type of air pollution you’re targetting.

If you’re still not convinced, allow me to tell you a little story about myself. I traveled in Asia for a few years and throughout my travels, I frequently stayed in the more metropolitan areas of Taiwan and China, both of which suffer harshly from horrible air pollution. It was so bad, in fact, that you could mop the floor, go to bed with the windows open, and in the morning you would find a black film of nasty dust lying on that freshly mopped floor! It was absolutely disgusting and if you ever wanted to open your windows, even for just a few hours, you’d have to wipe the entire place down or face the wrath of that disgusting black soot all over your stuff.

After a few months of “just dealing with it”, I got fed up and bought myself an air purifier. That poor thing had to work its butt off but I was sure happy with the results. My floors no longer had the black soot all over them and I noticed immediately that I was able to breathe much better inside my own home. After a few months, I took a look at the filters inside my air purifier and wow, they were stuffed with that black dust of doom. I’m sure glad I wasn’t breathing in and having to touch that stuff on a daily basis for so long!

I tell you this story because, unfortunately, I think a lot of you will or have suffered a similar problem. Air pollution has been getting worse and the problem in my story isn’t just in Asia. This black soot can be found anywhere industrialized and every day we see more and more of this issue around the world.

It’s incredibly unfortunate, however, the truth is that those of you who do not use an air purifier at home are likely already suffering tremendously more than the people who use air purifiers. It’s a sad unfortunate truth, but it’s our reality until we come together to solve this issue. Until then, don’t cheap out on your health, invest in a quality air purifier as soon as you can!