How to Pick the Best Air Purifier for Home Detoxification

How to Pick the Best Air Purifier for Home Detoxification

Air filters are part of routine maintenance in the home and are critical for the minimization of indoor air pollutants. Indoor air pollution is composed of a complex mixture of pollutants that migrate indoors from our outdoor air, along with unique indoor pollutants such as mold, dead skin cells, pet hair, dander, chemicals from paints and treated woods, and the list goes on. Thus, when ventilation is limited in your home and pollutants are trapped in your air, the job of your air filter becomes essential in capturing these pollutants. It is not enough to just slap a filter on your air conditioning unit, read on to know how to find the best air purifier for your home.

There are two main ways of helping to filter indoor air pollutants: placing an HVAC filter over your home’s built-in air circulation system or purchasing a specialized home air filtration unit (1). Considering the number of pollutants that can be found in indoor air, I like to keep on the safe side and use an effective air filtration system in addition to my built-in air circulation system, which is also filtered with an HVAC screen.

What is an HVAC Filter?

HVAC air filters are the same as air conditioning filters or furnace filters that are placed in your central air conditioning systems. The main purpose of a HVAC filter is to help maintain good indoor air quality through adequate ventilation with filtration. The placement of an HVAC air filter can block airborne particulates that can include animal dander, pollen, mold spores, bacteria, and viruses depending on the Minimum Efficiency Rating Value (MERV) of the HVAC filter.

HVAC filters are rated using the MERV rating to determine the efficiency of the filter to capture particles of specific sizes that pass through, the MERV rating ranges from 1 to 16. The higher the rating the more particles the filter can remove, but filters with very high MERV ratings, which capture extremely small particles, tend to be pricey and are functional mainly for those with severe allergy problems.

The four standards of HVAC filters are also something to consider when purchasing an HVAC filter, and these standards are

Efficiency

Arrestance

Dust holding capacity

Longevity

The best air purifier would exceed in all four of these parameters by being able to trap and lock into place a wide range of pollutants down to a very small particle size. Many HVAC filters only offer modest filtration with a filter that may only last a couple months. Finding an efficient HVAC filter like the EnviroKlenz HVAC Filter with the capability to both absorb and neutralize odors, chemicals, and particulates in your air can better increase the quality of the air you breathe and help promote overall better health. This particular filter can be used up to 4 months at a time.

Changing Filters

It is important to know the life of your current HVAC filters as once they reach a certain point of saturation, they can begin to release harmful compounds back into the air. The time it takes for your filter to reach this point can vary depending on a number of factors including; how often the filtration system is running, the number of occupants in the filtration space, whether or not you have pets, the materials used in your home’s construction, etc.

A good general guideline is to change your filters every 1-4 months depending on their saturation level. They are typically ready to switch out once the white fibers have taken on a new color that may resemble a grayish brown. At a minimum, HVAC filters should be changed 3 times per year in most cases.

Do You Need an Air Purifier?

Allergies, asthma, autoimmune diseases, multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS), and other health ailments could render the need and support of an effective air purifier. An air cleaner or air purifier draws polluted air through a filter before releasing the air back into your home. The increasing need for air purifiers to be used in the personal indoor environments is becoming elevated as recent research has indicated indoor air pollution as one of the top five environmental risks to human health, according to the EPA (2).

Some indoor air pollutants are blatantly obvious including tobacco smoke, fumes from household products, dust, pollen, mold, and animal dander. However, there are some not-so-obvious pollutants that could be at the forefront of your symptom flare-up. Some of the most unthought-of pollutants that are in your home are things like (3):

• Flame Retardants off-gassing from furniture
• Synthetic Fragrances from Air Fresheners and Candles
• By-products from cooking appliances

Finding the best air purifier to reduce the toxic load these things place on your body is increasingly important in today’s day and age.

Air Purifier Benefits

Our world is becoming increasingly toxic and the air we breathe is just one aspect of toxicity that can’t be ignored. With the constant bombardment of toxins that must be processed and eliminated by the body, it makes sense to do whatever we can to ease this toxic burden on the body.

Some of the most effective ways we can do this include drinking clean reverse osmosis water, filtering the air within our homes, and engaging in daily detoxification practices.

Having an air filter may help to ease your toxic load and aid in (4, 5, 6):

Improving Allergy Symptoms

Lowering Chronic Inflammation

Improving the Immune System

Improving Mental Health

Easing Liver Stress

Improving Inflammatory Skin Conditions

And more

Daily detoxification practices are something I always recommend for overall wellness and longevity, no matter who you are. Finding the best air purifier and cleaning up the air you breathe a large amount of your time is key.

Selecting the Best Air Purifier

What makes an air purifier the best on the market? Air purifiers are plentiful, with a wide variety of different options from hundreds of styles and manufacturers of portable air purifiers, which can range in price from the low end $30 to the high end of multiple thousands of dollars. When you are looking to select the best air purifier you need to look at and understand the different technologies in each air purifier.

Ear, nose, and throat doctor at Harvard- affiliated Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Dr. Nicholas Busaba, recommends a high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter, which is able to capture ultra-fine particles in the air. An air purifier like the EnviroKlenz Mobile System that contains a high-efficiency, hospital-grade HEPA could be the perfect air purifier for your home.

To take it a step further, you could find a unit that incorporates a UV-C light component within the filtration mechanism to deactivate and destroy airborne pathogens such as bacteria, mold, and viruses.  You can learn more about this in this video

EnviroKlenz Mobile System

The EnviroKlenz® Mobile Air System is your solution to improving your personal environment air quality through an “adsorptive neutralization” process for chemical odors, fragrances, and VOCs, combined with HEPA filtration for particulates and allergens all in one system. The EnviroKlenz Mobile Air System utilizes hospital-grade technology to provide maximum air cleaning efficiency for your home and office.

EnviroKlenz Mobile combines certified HEPA filtration along with our patented EnviroKlenz-Air Cartridge to remove airborne pollen, dust, odors, mold, gasses, fragrance, VOCs, allergens, bacteria, and more. Everything you could ever want in an air purification system, and best of all it leaves you with no fears concerning the re-release of toxic pollutants back into your environment! To learn more about the EnviroKlenz Mobile System and the benefits it can provide to you and your environment, simply click here to continue reading.

Sources for this Article Include:

1. Vijayan VK, Paramesh H, Salvi SS, Dalal AA. Enhancing indoor air quality -The air filter advantage. Lung India. 2015;32(5):473-9. PMID: 26628762

2. Pike-Paris, A. (2005). Indoor Air Quality: part II–what it does. Pediatric Nursing, 31(1), 39–44, 49. PMID: 15794322

3. American Lung Association: Indoor Air Pollutants and Health (LINK)

4. Rosati, J. A., Yoneda, K. Y., Yasmeen, S., Wood, S., & Eldridge, M. W. (2005). Respiratory Health and Indoor Air Pollution at High Elevation. Archives of Environmental & Occupational Health, 60(2), 96–105. PMID: 16983862

5. Łopuszańska, U. & Makara-Studzińska, M. (2017). The correlations between air pollution and depression.. Current Problems of Psychiatry, 18(2), pp. 100-109. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/cpp-2017-0009

6. Bernatsky, S., Smargiassi, A., Barnabe, C., Svenson, L. W., Brand, A., Martin, R. V., … Joseph, L. (2016). Fine particulate air pollution and systemic autoimmune rheumatic disease in two Canadian provinces. Environmental Research, 146, 85–91. PMID: 26724462