Air Purifier Ratings

How Air Purifiers Are Rated: Separating Fact From Fiction

My daughter suffers from the worst eczema I have ever seen. She is also the proof I need that being indoors means nothing when it comes to air quality. I will never forget taking her into a local hotel and watching her poor little body react. She was barely two years old and I had her in my arms. We walked through the lobby and waited for my husband. In the period of 30 minutes, she turned beet red and became puffy. She scratched at her arms and began to cry. Panicked and uncertain what else to do, we left. I knew my home had problems with air quality, which is why we had opted for a hotel room for a couple days as mold was being removed, but I had never anticipated such a severe reaction from a top hotel.  For people who suffer from allergies and asthma or those who are concerned about providing their families with cleaner air in their home as I was for our daughter, the answer can include ionic air purifiers, as I would soon learn as a young mom. But the road is paved with confusion. These units aren't cheap and come with strings of numbers and features that are cryptic at best. It helps to know how air purifier ratings and how to determine what one really needs.

If you have walked into a room with streaming light, you have undoubtedly seen particulates flying on light streams. These were things like dust, pet dander, and skin (believe it or not, but about 70 percent of household dust is dead skin we shed, at a rate of about ten pounds a year). What's more telling is what you can't see. Most air purifiers, like Ionic Breezes, work by removing airborne pollutants like mold spores, pollen, and bacteria. An air purifier's effectiveness is measured by its ability to capture the tiniest particulates and the amount of air it can process in a given time. All units use the same idea as my vacuum. Air goes in, passes through a filter, and comes back out. How clean the air is when it comes back out is really dependent on that little filter.  "The American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) was created to test and rate all filters. ASHRAE uses two distinct types of ratings. The first rating, known as the Initial Staining Dirt Efficiency, measures how well the filter removes microscopic staining particles such as tobacco tar, allergens and grease. The second rating, known as the Average Arrestance Test, determines the percentage of ordinary dust, hair, lint and other large particulate matter removed" (Achoo, 2010).  These are good details for anyone trying to make an informed decision, to separate hype from fact.

An Alen A350 Energy Star HEPA air purifier provides HEPA filtration for the home. It even has a neat prefilter than you can wash out, which should keep your HEPA filter cleaner for a longer period. Good idea, since they are expensive.  It also has a built in ionizer for sanitizing the air. For the record, the hotel that my daughter and I went to wouldn't benefit from most of the models available for home use. What they required was something like the BioZone Air Purifier, which is made specifically for larger areas and to clean the air of contaminants, even viruses and air-borne mold and algae.

One of the best types of filters available on the market today is the HEPA (also known as High Efficiency Particulate Air). HEPA filters have been tested for their ability to remove many different types of particulates that can cause allergic and asthmatic reactions. In order to pass as a HEPA filter, the filter must remove at least 99.97% of particulates (Achoo, 2010). A filter is good. A washable filter is great. A HEPA filter is about as good as it can get, because it will capture many of those things you cannot see, the ones that cause people their greatest problems, like allergens (ragweed, pollen, pet dander) and things that attacked my daughter's immune system, like mold spores.

There are many different standards and ratings requirements used for all air purifiers. Knowing how air purifier ratings won't necessarily answer all your questions, but it will ensure that every consumer receives the benefits he has been guaranteed by the manufacturer. No air purifier can guarantee 100% elimination of allergies or asthma; however, HEPA air purifiers can guarantee the elimination of many of the harmful airborne contaminants that can trigger allergies, asthma attacks, and, thankfully for my daughter, eczema flare ups.

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