What can you expect from an air purifier? That, of course, depends on which kind of air purifier you buy. We do not recommend buying a reverse engineered air cleaner - even if the manufacturer has a household name and produces excellent other products, such as TVs, cars or even duct tape. By reverse engineering we mean to say that the company started out by asking the wrong questions, such as: How much would customers like to spend for an air purifier? How much shelf space can it occupy at the local retail store? What new and exciting sounding technologies could it use? Who is going to do the R&D for us and how much are we willing to pay for it?
When trying to understand what to expect from an air purifier, a good air purifier buying guide will help you as the right questions, such as: What is the average room size? How many air changes per hour does an air purifier need to achieve in such a room? What is the best possible filtration efficiency achievable? How can we guarantee the air purifier's reliable performance?
What you get when you build an air purifier based on asking the right questions is an air cleaner unit that does not make any compromises and thus sets itself apart from the rest.
There are not a lot of companies that do ask the right questions, but if they do, this is what you can expect from an air purifier:
1) It is effective. A true HEPA air purifier will take the larges range of particle pollution out of the air - which includes viruses, bacteria, and ultrafine traffic pollution. With HyperHEPA filtration you will even take out particulates in the size range of 0.3-0.1 micron - at which particulate pollution is most difficult to capture.
2) It is reliable. My HealthPro 250 is 10 years old and it still runs and performs as it did on its very first day. Due to its mechanical filtration, it's filtration efficiency does not decrease even over time.
3) It is quiet. There are no shortcuts in air purification. You want to move enough air to significantly improve the air quality in your home, but this can not be done completely silently. So it is important to properly assess an air purifier's noise levels.
