Southwestern Ontario has to deal with everything from industrial air pollution to ragweed and grass pollen to mold, making life rather miserable for allergy and asthma sufferers. But an air purifier, also sometimes called an air cleaner, can remove a lot of the extra pollen, spores, and pollutants from a room. If you or a family member have allergies or asthma, a purifier could make it much easier for everyone to breathe.

What They Do
In general, air purifiers suck in air from a room and run it through a filter or a series of filters. The filters remove particles (which particles depends on the filter type) and blow the scrubbed air out of another vent, back into the room. The amount of pollution removed from the air depends on the types of filter and the size of the filter.

Air purifiers are made to work in different sizes of rooms, so it’s crucial that you check an air purifier’s documentation to ensure you get the right size. A purifier that’s too small for a room won’t remove enough of the pollutants to seem very effective. You’ll still get some results, but they won’t be as satisfying as they would have been had you bought a purifier that was sized correctly.

Basic air purifiers have one layer of filters. These filters can be plain — just material that catches particles — or they can have germicidal properties. These filters can also be HEPA filters, or high-efficiency particular air filters, which remove nearly all particles from the air. Many air purifiers have a second layer of filter, an activated carbon filter, that removes particles that cause odors. You can also find purifiers with pre-filters, which catch large particles that could easily clog up the other filters and shorten the other filters’ lifespan.

How They Can Help
The air in your home contains everything from the aforementioned pollens and mold spores to pet dander and dust mites. If you are allergic to these or if you have asthma, breathing in more of these particles obviously isn’t going to help you feel better.

If you can remove these particles, then breathing in the cleaner air can reduce the chances of having an allergy attack and reduce the chances that your asthma will be aggravated. That in turn can make you and your family a lot happier and reduce a source of stress in your lives.