Cleaning the house. The maid vacuums the carpet in the house. An Asian woman cleans a room. Typical duties of a wife. Diligence and care.
If you’re shopping for an air purifier, you may be curious about the different kinds of contaminants that these machines purify from your indoor air.
One such culprit is dust. We know that dust accumulates in homes for a lot of different reasons. You can have new construction dust, or dust in older properties from building materials and systems slowly breaking down over time.
Whether or not you can get rid of dust with an air purifier is an interesting question that deserves a little bit of a lengthy answer.
What is Dust?
Essentially, there are many different types of dust. Again, you might think of the types of dust that are in a home after it’s built – particles from drywall or cut wood, or other building materials. Or you might think about dust as just dirty grime that accumulates over time, including human and animal dander, dust mite shedding, and different types of small particles that build up on surfaces. Some of the larger particles are visible, especially when they’re gathered together in high volumes.
Toxic and Non-Toxic Dust
There are also different kinds of dust materials. Some are natural and non-toxic to humans. Others might have harmful or toxic elements like heavy metals in them.
Another big distinction is between larger dust particles, which tend to fall on some surface and stay there, and smaller ultrafine particles that might continue to circulate in the air. These ultrafine particles are more dangerous to human health, precisely because they stay in the air, and they’re small enough to get into the lungs and potentially cause problems.
So when you talk about dust, you’re really talking about a great spectrum of particles that make a difference in how you address them in your home.
Air Purifiers and Dusting
One of the most popular questions that we hear is – if I use an air purifier, do I still have to dust surfaces in my house?
In most cases, the answer is yes. Again, that’s because of the difference between large and small particles.
The larger particles will fall down and build up on surfaces. You’ll need to dust them off, and get rid of the dust. The smaller particles, on the other hand, will often get caught by the machine and cycled out of your indoor air in large quantities.
So the air purifier is much more effective against ultrafine particles and small dust. That’s what a lot of our customers use them for – to reduce the dander, spores, pollen and tiny particles from the air they breathe on a regular basis.
A Combined Approach
We hear from numerous people who like to adopt a two-tier approach to dealing with dust in the home.
On one hand, they run the air purifier for long periods of time on a medium setting.
They also use an in-home robot vacuum cleaner like a Roomba to go around, sucking up the larger dust particles that collect.
So they’re using different equipment on the large and small types of dust respectively.
That can be effective in limiting what people encounter in their homes.
Dust Drivers
In addition to aging properties, we hear from many pet owners who have multiple dogs or pets, and they state that a remarkable amount of dust builds up in their homes.
Another concern is the decibel levels, which you can read about from the manufacturer according to what you need.
So anyway, with some of these people dealing with large amounts of dust, when they’re using the robot vacuums, HEPA vacuums, or something else to collect the large dust, they can see a good deal of that lying around. What they don’t see is the more ultrafine particles in the air.
For that, you want to have a high quality air purifier with a HEPA filter to catch and remove tiny particles from your home’s indoor air.
The Lulay Team at USAirPurifiers is a family and veteran owned U.S. business, and we are truly here to help with your best interests in mind. Our team will help you to purify your indoor air and get a better result with modern technology that fights air pollution where it lives – and where you live, too! Make an investment in your health and the health of your family, to breathe easier all day and all night.