Indoor air is twice more polluted than outdoor air, and since the Environmental Protection Agency approximates that people spend 90% of their time indoors, this is a huge deal.
While we tend to focus on every small thing about our health, we disregard the most basic thing – the quality of the air we breathe. Many diseases nowadays are due to bad air quality. From the couch we sit on to the clothes we wear, everything can contain harmful chemicals and toxins and breathing them can lead to respiratory issues like asthma.
Modern problems require modern solutions – hence, people use an air purifier.
An air purifier is an essential appliance in homes, offices and everywhere indoors. It is especially important when someone has breathing issues or severe allergies. According to GFK (Growth from Knowledge), a global market research firm, more and more people are turning to air purifiers due to the decreasing quality of air.
Most air purifiers have HEPA filters that assist with cleaning and purifying the air around. HEPA stands for High-Efficiency Particulate Air and is a type of air filter that captures 99.97% of suspended particles as small as 0.3 microns.
But the question remains – is your air purifier working efficiently?
No, it’s not. Why? Whether the air purifier uses UV (ultra-violet) light filter, HEPA filter, or both, there are many times these air purifiers fail to clean the air. It can be due to many reasons, so, how do you check if the air purifier is working effectively? Here are three common yet effective methods that can help you in this task:
- By Using a Filter Indicator
One of the easiest ways to check the working of an air purifier is by the filter indicator light. Like every filtering system, the filters in the air purifiers lose their cleaning capacity with time. And eventually, the filters need to be replaced to keep the air purifier in the working condition. Filter indicators help in measuring the performance of the equipment and inform the users if the filters need to be changed.
- By Checking the Filter Manually
Every electronic system has a capacity, so one cannot truly rely on the filter indicators to check if the air purifier is working efficiently or not. It is necessary to check the filters and other parts of the purifiers regularly if you feel the air purifier is not working properly. If you find dust, debris and other contaminants clogging up inside the filter, chances are it needs replacement.
- By Using an Air Quality Monitor
Though the methods mentioned above can help tell if your air purifier is working, they are not precise. Thus, most people tend to opt for the third method – an air quality monitor.
Air Quality Monitors (AQM) are instruments that have high-precision and cutting-edge technology to monitor the factors that affect the quality of air in your house. These instruments consider both indoor and outdoor air quality to deliver artificial intelligence-driven recommendations to achieve the best air quality. Air quality monitor or air pollution monitor like AirVisual Pro (An AQM of IQAir) is equipped with sensors that help in determining the values of parameters such as:
- CO2: Excess of CO2 in a room causes the pH of the blood to decrease, making it too acidic. Moreover, it can also cause problems like asthma, COPD, pneumonia and sleep apnea.
- PM2.5: Particulate matter present in the air is harmful to health. Excessive contact with these particles causes – non-fatal heart attacks, irregular heartbeat, aggravated asthma, decreased lung function, increased coughing and difficulty in breathing.
- Humidity: Excessive humidity can also cause problems like dehydration, fatigue, muscle cramps, heat exhaustion, fainting, and heatstroke.
- Temperature: Temperature inside the house is also a significant contributor to the bad quality of air. Some problems that temperature brings with it are – discomfort, loss of coordination and stamina, weakness, and poor concentration.
By using AQMs, you can easily determine if your air purifier is doing the job you bought it for. In case it fails to clear these parameters, you can opt for an air purifier from IQAir that comes with patented HyperHEPA filter. It can filter ultrafine particles all the way down to 0.003 microns. Air purifiers with HyperHEPA technology provide 99.5% efficiency in cleaning the air which is more than any other purifier in the market.
‘The Takeaway’
Purchasing an air-purifier is not enough, you must also check if the air purifier is serving its purpose or not. Breathing un-clean air for long-term can lead to critical illnesses like cancer and heart attack. Thus, investing in an air pollution monitor along with an air purifier ensures clean and healthy air for your family. Air quality monitor and air purifier from IQAir are made in Switzerland and are only available in India with BreatheEasy – the official and exclusive partner of the Swiss brand IQAir.
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