Home & Garden

Electronic air filters are one of the more sophisticated types of air purifying models available. There are different types of electronic air filters that use electrical charges to clear the air, as opposed to mechanical air cleaners that draw the air through a filter. Some models are hybrids, combining the technology of the mechanical and the electronic air filters.

One of the benefits of the electronic air filters is that they can remove very small particles. Mechanical air filters can be quite effective at drawing in larger particles, such as dust and allergens, clearing the air of them. You might find this sufficient for your home or workplace.

Types of Electronic Air Filters
Electronic air filters actually send an electronic charge into the air and attach to particles. Some use electrostatic charge and are called electrostatic precipitators (or ESPs). The electrical charge sticks to the particles in the air as it filters through the device. Ionizers are another type of electronic air filter. They send negative ions into the atmosphere which attach to particles in the air. These particles then stick to materials nearby, such as the floor or walls.

If you are shopping for electronic air filters, look for ones that give off low levels of ozone. Electronic air filters will give off some ozone as a byproduct, and high levels of it are unhealthy. Over time, they can be harmful to our lungs, making it difficult to breathe. Look for models that give off safe ozone levels. If you are going to purchase an air filter to clean your air, you dont want to make the problem worse by polluting the air further!

Home air filters are effective in removing and destroying middle size particles in your home (these are the most dangerous for your health). These particles include such common substances as animal dander, dust mites, dust, bacteria, mold spores, and pollen. Unfortunately, these are easy to inhale, but they then stick to the lining of our lungs and do not exit upon our exhale.

My biggest complaint are the dust mites. Your mattresses, pillows, blankets and furniture are filled with millions of dust mites and their droppings. Actually, its the droppings that are the real culprit. These cause allergies and asthma, though you cant even see them. High-powered vacuum cleaners and home air filters are effective in removing these mites and their droppings.

Home Air Filters Can Remove Dust Mites
Incidentally, if you look online for a picture of a dust mite, youll see why they are so disgusting. They look like small creatures, but you cant see them because they are about 1/100 of an inch long. Thats probably for the best, except for the fact that they are also small enough to inhale. Their droppings are one of the greatest causes of allergies and asthma, and children are particularly susceptible to them.

Home air filters also help prevent the growth of dust mites by removing the material that sustains them. Dust mites eat other miniscule particles, such as dead skin cells, hair, dust (hence their names), and other particles. You will not be able to remove all of them, but you will be able to remove a great quantity of them.

If you suffer from allergies, even seasonal irritation, home air filtration can remove a great deal of the pollutants that are offending you. Seasonal allergies, also known as hay fever, can be debilitating. If you can at least clean the air in your home, you will find a respite from the outdoor pollen.

Home Air Filtration Can Remove Pollen and Other Allergens
When you open your doors and windows, you let millions of pollen particles into your home. If youre looking for relief indoors, youre out of luck. In fact, the Environment Protection Agency has shown that indoor air is more highly polluted than outdoor air, even in busy cities. Not only can you barely escape pollen indoors during allergy seasons, but there are even more pollutants inside your home. Home air filtration may be your best bet for cleaning your air.

Once your nasal membranes are irritated, they become more sensitive to further pollutants. Particles that are small enough, such as pollen and dust, can easily pass through the cilia in your nose. These are the tiny hairs that act as your own human air filter, meant to block larger particles from entering your lungs.

The smaller particles easily pass through your nose, but high powered home air filtrations systems can remove them from the air. There will then be fewer particles that you can inhale. These systems will also remove a large variety of other irritants, so even if you are already having allergic reactions to outdoor pollen, the indoor air will be clean enough to offer relief.

Home air purifiers cant stop your seasonal allergies nor can they make you better if you are already sick. What they can do is to help prevent some of these illnesses by removing the irritants. Home air purifiers alone cannot clean all of the pollutants from inside your home, nor can they clean the air completely. But they can significantly reduce your indoor air pollution. You might find that you breathe easier, smell fewer odors and sleep better.

Your best way of clearing indoor air pollution is to combine various cleaning techniques, both removing the source of the problems and using home air purifiers. Some of the worst offenders are smoke, pollen, animal dander, and mold.

Consider Health Needs in Choosing Home Air Purifiers
You should consider your goals when shopping for home air purifiers. If you are sensitive to allergies, you want to remove dust mites, dust, pollen and animal dander. If you are bothered by odors, you want to be able to remove gases and smoke.

If smoke is one of your offenders, you can easily attack its source. As much as possible, avoid smoking inside, or at least open a window and blow the smoke outside the window. This wont completely solve your problem, but it will help. The powerful home air purifiers can actually remove smoke particles, even those stuck to your fabrics, such as carpets, furniture and curtains. The description of the particular model of air purifier will tell you what kind and what size particles it can remove. It might take a couple of days to remove the smoke particles from fabrics in your home, but the unit will eventually do so.

Indoor air filters must be cleaned and replaced as needed. By failing to maintain your system, you are risking the unit redistributing pollutants back into the air. At the very least, the unit will be much less effective.

Central Indoor Air Filters
Central indoor air filters can be found as independent systems or as part of your furnace and air conditioning unit. The regular lower-end indoor air filters that come with your furnace can filter out some of the large particles in the air, such as regular dust, but are ineffective at removing anything smaller. They will only remove less than ten percent of particles in the air and only the largest particles. These filters are one inch thick fiberglass.

Slightly higher-end air filters will remove about twenty to fifty percent of particles and slightly smaller particles. Both are inexpensive and easy to replace yourself, similar to automobile air filters. Replace them about every six months or call your air conditioning and heating people to do it for you.

Portable indoor air filters are sometimes easier to maintain. Some of them will require you to clean the filters as opposed to replace them. You do need to replace and change the filters or the units can become ineffective. One particularly easy-to-maintain model requires no changing or cleaning filters at all. Rather, because it uses a UV lamp, you actually replace the bulb every three years. This is probably the easiest in terms of maintenance.