HEPA Air Cleaners

We keep seeing the word HEPA when we plan to buy air purifiers. But what does this mean? Some people have the misconception that this is a specific brand. But it is not. So, what are HEPA Air Cleaners?

It is actually short for High Efficiency Particulate Arrestor (Air filter). This type of filtering system is used in different air cleaning and purification equipment including air cleaners, air purifiers and in high quality vacuum cleaners. It can filter air particles that are down to 0.3 microns in size like dust, smoke, pollen, animal dander, dust mite and other allergens. It is even used to remove asbestos in buildings, clean up pharmaceutical and other potentially toxic spills. More important, it has an efficiency rating of 99.97%.

So how does HEPA work? It filters air particles by trapping the particles, allowing only the clean air to return into the indoor environment. The higher the air exchange rate per hour, the cleaner your room is, because as the more time air passes through the filter, the better the air quality.

In addition, high quality HEPA air cleaners also have some added features like a medical grade ultra violet light system or Enhanced Germicidal Filtration (EGF) system. These are usually called HEPA air purifiers because they can also quickly kill viruses, bacteria and fungi like mold spores. In this way, your air cleaner also protects you from biological and virus contamination as well as dust, dust mite allergen, pollen, odors and out-gassing chemicals. You must be careful though in buying this type of cleaner because some brands only contain pre-filters that have been sprayed with carbon dust, and these are short lived and more of a sales gimmick than an effective way of removing odors and out-gassing chemicals. So be careful and choose your product well. First, conduct some research first before deciding to buy a product.

Also, do not confuse HEPA with Ozone-Ionizer Air Purifiers. These two are completely different. Ozone Ionizer Air Purifiers do not clean the air by filtration. It uses two steps to clean indoor air. First, ozone purifies the air by oxidation. Ozone can penetrate into the cellular structure of odor, bacteria and fungus molecules, destroying the cell wall of the contaminant, which greatly reduces odor and contaminants. The second step is the ionization. Ionic charges attach to airborne particles such as smoke, dust, pollen, animal dander, etc, forcing the particles to quickly drop out of the air in the breathing environment and down to the ground.

However, HEPA cleaners are very effective cleaning indoor air and improving air quality, there are disadvantages in using this type of filtering device. This type of cleaners can efficiently clean only one room or open area at a time. Therefore, if you put your cleaner inside your bedroom, do not expect that it will be able to clean the air in your living room or in other areas of your home.

They can only clean the air in the room or open area they are operating in! Putting it in the hallway between three bedrooms will clean the hallway but not the bedrooms. Thus, what most people do is that they placed in all needed rooms or home office areas and in areas where people stay the most for example, a room area where the family hangs out to watch TV together. So choose an area to put your HEPA air cleaners for it to work efficiently.

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