6 Best Home Air Purifiers Reviewed: Banish wildfire smoke, pet peeves, and more

Can wildfire smoke enter your home?

Yes. It may not seem as bleak as it is outside, but particles like wildfire smoke – 20 to 30 times smaller than a human hair – can enter your home in a number of ways. Most air purifiers have sensors that provide live air quality metrics from the room they are in, including PM2.5 (particulate matter).

Indoor air is not naturally clean unless there is a major air quality event taking place. Indoor air pollution can be caused by cleaning products, cooking fumes, or small plastics embedded in dust or pet dander. It’s all the more reason to keep an air purifier running 24/7 at home, whether you have allergies or not.

How bad is fire smoke for our health?

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and PreventionWildfire smoke can cause breathing problems, headaches, fatigue, coughing, and shortness of breath, to name a few side effects. This applies to everyone after repeated exposure, not just “sensitive groups.”

Even if you feel well, the smoke particles are small enough to enter our bloodstream. In accordance with Yale Medicinethat means they also have access to other organs such as the heart and liver. Over time, exposure to PM 2.5 can lead to an increased risk of cancer, heart disease, and cognitive problems. Particles like smoke can also irritate your skin and cause oxidative stress, working against your skin care routine.

Those with asthma, heart disease, or diabetes are at higher risk of getting sick. Children and pregnant people are considered the most vulnerable when it comes to getting sick from wildfire smoke.

Wildfire smoke also affects the health of pets. It can irritate their eyes, make it difficult for them to breathe, or damage their small respiratory systems. I American Veterinary Medical Association says that if we see or feel the effects of smoke, so can our pets. That is especially true for pets with cardiovascular or respiratory problems.

Benefits of an air purifier

If your area is full of wildfire smoke, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommends keeping windows and doors closed. However, smoke may enter under doors, through cracks, or through kitchen and bathroom drains. Using a portable air purifier can help reduce harmful particles that may enter your home.

Air purifiers work by taking in room air and sending it through a filtration system.

High quality air purifiers do so with a HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Air) filter in addition to several other filters. The front filter is a very nice addition, and it looks like a well-woven screen. This helps capture dust and hair, leaving the HEPA filter all-important and partially blocked from larger debris that can float through the air. A HEPA filter can remove 99.97% of small particles in the air that we can’t see, but can cause discomfort, according to the EPA. That includes wildfire smoke, cigarette smoke, pollution from nearby vehicles, pollen and dust.

Forum on specific issue: PM 10 and PM 2.5

When shopping for an air purifier, you’ll see many models that state that they capture particleor PM. For the most part, those are things in the air you don’t want to inhale. We measure PM by its width. With a display on the unit or in the app, most air purifiers will track the level of PM 10 and PM 2.5 in the air. To help get a baseline, a single strand of human hair measures between 50 and 70 microns in diameter, according to estimates from the EPA.

• PM 10: Particles measuring 10 microns in diameter include dust, pollen, mold, and other wildfire smoke particles.

• PM 2.5: These small particles measure 2.5 microns in diameter, which is true of most of the particles emitted by wildfire smoke.

Since PM is so small, it can enter our blood and concentrate deep in the lungs, according to Yale Medicine.

Do air fresheners help with allergies and germs?

Since HEPA filters are designed to scrub the air of potentially harmful particles, they can also help reduce pollen, dust and even bacteria. I Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America he says that using a HEPA filter can reduce airborne allergens that end up in the house. That could be from an open window, the clothes you wore when you went to the park, or even when the dog came home from a walk.

An air purifier with a HEPA filter can be helpful during cold and flu season. Not all of them virus particles are large enough to be captured by HEPA filters. However, many are introduced into the air by coughing or sneezing so that those virus particles travel between larger particles (what the CDC calls respiratory droplets) which are. it can be HEPA filtered. Using an air purifier definitely doesn’t mean you won’t get sick if you’re sitting in a room with a sick person all day, but it may reduce the chances of it happening.