People need a certain level of humidity to be comfortable. In the winter, indoor humidity can be extremely low, and the lack of humidity can dry out your skin and mucous membranes. Low humidity also makes the air feel colder than it actually is. Dry air can also dry out the wood in the walls and floors of our houses. As the drying wood shrinks, it can cause creaks in floors and cracks in drywall and plaster. Dry air also increases static electricity.

It can maintain a certain level of humidity for plants and pets in your home.

Activated carbon is effective at removing gas molecules and odors. Activated carbon is the most common element in military gas masks. The most common method of activating carbon is a two-stage steaming process, which enlarges the carbon’s surface pore size. This in turn produces a more accessible internal surface area allowing for greater adsorption.

The CFM (Cubic Feet per Minute) is the measurement of how much air passes through the unit. For the standard, the HealthMate+ , and the Allergy Machine the fan CFM is 400 cfm on high and 75cfm on low. The HealthMate Jr is 200 cfm on high and 50cfm on low.

Electrical attraction is another technology used by air purifier appliances to trap airborne particles. There are three types of products that use this technology: electrostatic precipitating cleaners, electret filters, and negative ion generators.

Electrostatic precipitating (also called “electronic” air purifiers) draw particles into the unit via a fan and charge them with a series of high-voltage wires. Several plates (the precipitating cells) carry the opposite electrical charge and attract the contaminants as they pass by the plates, thus trapping them. They are typically not as effective as HEPA, removing 95% of airborne particles as opposed to 99.97% in a HEPA air purifier.

Electret filters use synthetic fibers to create static charges to attract particles.

Negative ion generation is a technology that is sometimes used as the sole cleaning agent, or in conjunction with HEPA filtration in an air purifier. Negative ions are emitted into the air and attach to the positively charged particles in the room, then clumping together to settle out of the air onto a surface. Read more about air purifier technology.

For many years, HEPA air filters have been used in air purifiers to filter particles. HEPA filters are well proven filtration devices and continue to be enhanced by many manufacturers. HEPA filtration guarantees the purifier will trap 99.97% of airborne particles larger than 0.3 microns. The human eye can’t see a particle smaller than 10 microns so many of the particulates captured cannot be seen, particularly bacteria and viruses. The filters found on room air conditioner models capture only large particles greater than 10 microns. For the smaller particles like dust, smoke, chemicals, pollens, and asbestos, HEPA filtration is needed.

The HEPA filtration component is essentially an accordion of very, very fine paper-like filter material. The material is loaded in an accordion or zig-zag fashion so that a very large surface area becomes available for air to be pushed through by the fan. Over time, the HEPA filter will become full and the airflow will no longer be able to move through the filter. HEPA filters typically last a number of years.

The more times the air in a room passes through a purifier with HEPA filtration, the cleaner the air will become. For the air purifier to be effective, it is important that it have the cleaning capacity for the size room in which it will be used. The specifications on the product will indicate what size room it is designed to clean. Read more about HEPA Technology.

The human eye can’t see a particle smaller than 10 microns so many of the particulates captured cannot be seen, particularly bacteria and viruses. The filters found on room air conditioner models capture only large particles greater than 10 microns. For the smaller particles like dust, smoke, chemicals, pollens, and asbestos, HEPA filtration is needed in an air purifier.

HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Air) filters are well proven filtration devices that continue to be enhanced by many manufacturers. The benchmark for air filters, HEPA filtration guarantees the air purifier will trap 99.97% of particles larger than 0.3 microns.

An “air cleaner” is another term for an “air purifier.” Both are designed to remove indoor air pollutants and particulates. When these types of appliances first came on the market, they were typically called air cleaners, but in recent years, they are primarily referred to as an air purifier.

An air purifier is an appliance that reduces the concentration of airborne contaminants in a designated area according to the specifications of the particular product. Purifiers help to clean indoor air, which is helpful to people who suffer from allergies, asthma, chemical sensitivity, and other respiratory-related symptoms.