Posts Tagged air purifier
Air Purifiers – Know Your Pollutants!
People use air purifiers in the home and office to screen pollutants and contaminants out of the air. But just what are these pollutants, and why should they matter to you?
Bacteria: Airborne bacteria can be a problem, to say the least. Such diseases as tetanus, typhoid fever, pneumonia, syphilis, cholera, leprosy, and tuberculosis are all the nasty products of these airborne pathogens. Lucky for us, not all bacteria are this vicious; there’s also ‘friendly bacteria’, which if it’s any help to you at all is living some place private, like your pancreas, out of reach of an air purifier.
Mold spores: Mold is a fungus just like mushrooms. Mold reproduces itself through spores, which fly around in the air and aggravate your allergies. Some molds are toxic when inhaled. Black mold, which can grow on food, can produce the serious lung disease aspergillosis if large quantities are inhaled. Mold is a problem in buildings which are too air-tight and have too much trapped moisture.
Viruses: Submicroscopic and microorganisms particles that can infect the cells of a biological organism – you, for instance. Needs no introduction here. People with weakened immune systems from a present medical condition can especially do with fewer viruses in the air.
Pet dander: Dander is hair and skin particles that fly off of a pet and cause an allergic reaction in people so inclined, frequently manifested in a sneeze. Skin rashes can also be an allergic reaction to pet dander.
Dust: No, it’s not a matter of how much you clean; even in the tidiest households, dust happens. Some people with dust allergies can have an extreme reaction. Another airborne dust problem is found in industrial workplace environments. If the product being manufactured produces enough dust, it can even constitute a safety hazard.
Dust mites: These little critters live in that dust that you didn’t want around anyway. They’re known as Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus in Europe and Dermatophagoides farinae in America, but by any name are regarded as a nuisance. Dust mites are thought to be the number one cause of asthma worldwide. Unlucky for us, dust mites like it best in the same kind of carpeted, draft-proof, cushioned environment that we people like.
Smoke: Oooooh, do we smokers ever take a lot of heat for our filthy habit! An air purifier can help you live with that human chimney in your home. It can even help the smoker’s health, when they no longer have to stand outside in the snow.
Odors: The obvious one that nobody ever thinks about. Air purifiers can help dispel the taints of paint, bleach, cooking, and chemical solvents from the air. If it offends your nose, an air purifier gets rid of it.
Well, that covers most of it. It’s surprising to see how much is going on right in front of our noses that we can’t see, isn’t it?
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Air Purifier – How To Tell If YOURS Is Any Good
These days it seems that everyone is gung ho about air purification systems. People with allergies, people with asthma and people who are just cleanliness freaks. It doesn’t matter how often you dust the furniture, mop the floors, vacuum the rugs or change the bed sheets, your home just isn’t really clean unless you have an air purification system.
But just how effective are these systems and are they all the same?
The answer may or may not surprise you. The truth is, not all air purification systems are the same. Some work well, some not so well, so the problem that most consumers face is how to tell if the air purification system they want to buy is the best one or for that matter, any good at all. Well, there are two ways to go about doing this.
The first way, and probably the most accurate is to first get yourself an in-home allergen tester. You can buy one of these things in just about any Sears store. Basically, the way these gadgets work is by measuring the levels of the eight most common allergens in your home. The process though isn’t as simple as it sounds. Most require you to hook up the device to a vacuum cleaner which collects the allergens. After that you then have to mail the bag to the lab for them to test. You would do this before buying your air purifier. Then the next step in determining if the air purifier you want to get is doing a substantial job is by buying one on the condition that if you’re not satisfied, you can return it. Most places will give you 30 days to try one out. You then take the purifier home, run it for the amount of time it says is required to make a difference and then rerun the allergen test. Send the next sample to the lab for testing and they will then be able to tell you the effectiveness of the unit you purchased. You can then decide if you want to keep the unit.
Sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it? Well, there is an easier way. Fortunately, there are independent companies that run tests on these air purifiers. You can easily find one on the Internet. While this does require you to take THEIR word for the findings, it certainly is a lot easier and quicker than going through the procedure above.
If you should go to one of these sites, what you will normally find is a chart with the following pieces of information. You’ll see the lab where the test was done, the air purifier that the tests were performed on, the country where it was tested, the type of allergen tests that were done, and most importantly, the percentage of reduction. This is basically the bottom line. If you read these results you will notice that none are more than 99% reduction. This is because we don’t live in a bubble and it just isn’t physically possible to get rid of all the allergens, but 99% is very good.
Of course that all depends on whether or not you believe these results. Unfortunately, only your nose will know.
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