How a Whole House Air Purifier Will Help You Breathe Easier | Kitchener ON

Fall is right around the corner, and many are glad to see the end of sweltering summer days and embrace cooler weather. As the temps start to plummet, we’ll be spending more time inside behind closed doors and sealed windows. Home is a safe, warm space where we can relax…isn’t it? Per the EPA, it isn’t as safe inside as you may think. In fact, the air you breathe inside your home or office can be just as polluted, if not more so, than the air you breathe outside in an urban environment. The best defense is a whole house air purifier to rid your space of harmful indoor pollutants.

Let’s take a look into what kind of pollutants are in your home or office space and see why an HVAC air purifier is your best defense.

What Kind of Pollutants are Hovering Inside Your Home?

The dangers of indoor air pollution are very real, and very frightening. Air pollutants cause dizziness, headaches, heart disease, cancers, and respiratory issues. Some pollutants are nuisances that trigger allergies while others, such as carbon monoxide and radon, are deadly.

One sign of dirty air is, of course, a dank, musty, unpleasant odor. Just because your home smells clean, however, doesn’t mean you don’t have harmful pollutants from some unexpected sources, including:

• Pesticides and insecticides
• Furniture materials and plastics
• Cooking fumes
• Heating sources, including coal and fireplaces
• Paint
• Dust
• Dust mites
• Allergens
• Mold and mildew
• Bacteria
• Outside pollutants seeping into your home or office
• Pet dander
• Viruses
• Radon
• Carbon Monoxide

These pollutants will affect every member of your household, but are especially harmful to those suffering from allergies, heart disease, lung diseases such as emphysema or COPD, asthma, or any other respiratory illness. They have also been shown to cause cancer.

Clean the Air: Air Scrubbers and Whole House Air Purifiers 

There are two products on the market that do roughly the same job, but for different applications and through different processes. You have probably heard of both an air scrubber and an HVAC air purifier, but may not know the difference between the two. 

Air Scrubbers

An air scrubber is usually a portable device, designed to clean air in large spaces. It works by sucking in dirty air, filtering it to remove pollutants, and blowing the cleaned air back into the space. An air scrubber uses both a pre-filter and a primary filter to help ensure all pollutants are “captured.”

Air scrubber filters primarily use two methods of air cleaning: dry scrubbing and wet scrubbing.

Dry scrubbers use sorbent materials to trap particles and clean the air, while wet scrubbers are moistened with a specialized fluid, designed to trap the toxic particles.

Air Purifiers

HVAC air purifiers, otherwise known as whole house purifiers, are similar to air scrubbers in job function, but are even more aggressive in the approach they use to rid your home of pollutants. Air purifiers suck dirty air in, and across the filters. The filters absorb pollutants including mold, bacteria, odors, dust, and dirt before pushing the clean air back into your home. Air purifiers also contain moisture absorbent materials to help balance humidity levels.

A whole house purifier is installed in the return duct of your existing HVAC system, capturing the air that passes through the duct and trapping pollutants through several filters.

Most HVAC air purifiers use a HEPA filter, which filters bacteria, tiny particulate matter, and up to 99.9% of other harmful pollutants before releasing the cleaned air back into your home.

Many air purifiers also include a carbon filter to remove odors. Additionally, high quality air purifiers come equipped with UV light filters to kill germs and viruses.

An HVAC air purifier will improve the quality of the air inside your home, and that’s a good thing. How good?

1. Breathe easier: Remove allergens, dust, dust mites, and other pollutants that trigger allergies and respiratory issues
2. Breathe fresher: These devices are designed to make the air lighter, fresher, and cooler
3. Sleep better: Research shows that air purification will lead to better sleep

Other Ways to Help Clean your Inside Air

There are several things you can do to help clean the air inside your home.

• Change HVAC filters at least once per year
• Run ceiling fans (remember clockwise in winter, counterclockwise in summer)
• Increase ventilation
• Use kitchen fans and vents
• Run the bathroom vents and fans to prevent mold
• Keep humidity low, between 30 to 50 percent

Holtzople Helps You Breathe Better

Holtzople professionally installs whole house air purifiers and air scrubbers that will help you breathe easier. Find out more about keeping your family healthy this winter, and all year long.