Air Purifiers and Their Claims about Removing Dust from the Air?

Air Purifiers and Their Claims about Removing Dust from the Air?

Many manufacturers of air purifiers proclaim that their machine will remove all impurities from your indoor air such as smoke, dust and pet dander and make the air “as clean as the driven snow”. This is absolutely not the “whole truth and nothing but the truth”. With a lot of effort, and the use of an air purifier, you can remove the majority of the dust in your home, but never 100% of it.

Why Removing Dust Improves Your Health

Besides being unsightly, dust is a potential health irritant. It can cause eye, nose, and throat irritations. And if some of the particles in the dust are small enough in size, they have the potential of entering your lungs and even your bloodstream.

What Makes Up Dust?

The dust in your home is more than just soil that is carried in from outside. It can be a mix of shed skin cells, bacteria, dust mites, clothing fibers, pollen, mold, and many other things. Not only that, but much of the makeup of dust can absorb contaminants from the consumer products we use, like air fresheners and household cleaners.

As dust is disturbed, it will be re-suspended in the air we breathe. While suspended the dust will pick up and absorb even more contaminants before once again settling. If you live in an older home, the dust present may even contain contaminants that were banned years ago, like DDT or the lead that was once found in paint. Things tracked into the home on shoes or pets can include all sorts of chemicals, from things like fertilizers to pesticides. If your home has things like vinyl flooring, food packaging, flame retardant cloth or material, foam carpet padding, personal care products, or toilet paper, it already has harmful chemicals that can be absorbed by dust. Scientists admit that it is really hard to determine exactly what may be contained in common household dust.

Can an Air Purifier Remove Dust?

The simple answer is yes… and no. Yes, it can help reduce particles that are floating in the air. No, it will not remove 100% of dust particles. For an air purifier, its efficiency at removing dust is dependent on the type of filter the purifier contains.  If the air purifier uses a HEPA filter, it will be able to capture particles that are 0.3 microns in size or larger. The majority of dust particles are 2.5 to 10 microns in size. One micron is one-millionth of a meter (1 x 10-6). To give you an idea of how small this is, an average human hair is 50 microns large.

As air circulates through the room where the purifier is located, the air will easily pass through the purifier’s HEPA filter. Any particles 0.3 microns in size or larger in that air will be captured by the filter.

What an air purifier can’t do is remove dust that has settled onto surfaces. It can only address dust particles suspended in the air. So on that dust-covered coffee table or large screen TV, the dust that has already settled will not “magically” disappear because you have turned on an air purifier. Also, these machines will not remove gaseous odors (VOCs) from the air. They only trap particles. They also require you to clean or change their filters on a scheduled basis. If not, the organic particles, an estimated 40% of the particles that will be captured, could become a food source for mold or bacteria. If this happens, the air exiting the purifier could actually contaminate the air that you breathe, rather than purify it.

The Best 5 Ways to Reduce Dust

As we stated before, nobody can eliminate 100% of the dust it their home. The steps you can take to drastically reduce the amount of dust include:

1. Always dust from top to bottom using a damp cloth. Never use paper towels to dust with. Dust is abrasive and so are paper towels. Using paper towels could leave scratches in whatever you are dusting.

2. Invest in a vacuum cleaner that has a true HEPA filter and use it twice as often as you previously thought was necessary.

3. Change you bed linens often. Dead skin cells are a prominent component of dust.

4. If you own a pet, groom them often and in an easy to clean area of your home or in the garage if possible.

5. Install an air purifier, with at least a HEPA filter, to remove dust from the air before it has a chance to settle.