To keep your indoor areas constantly fresh and clean, how often should you run an air purifier? You might wonder this because air purifiers are great cleaning devices, but it can be hard to determine at first how often you should use them to get the most out of their air-cleaning power.
We want you to use your air purifier to its full potential in cleaning your home from pollutants such as dust, pollen, smoke particles, dust mites, and the like. Therefore, we made this guide to help you out. Air purifiers should be doing their job properly, which is why you’ll want to know more about them.
Just because you run an air purifier for long hours doesn’t necessarily mean it will consume a lot of electricity – most of these devices are eco-friendly and energy-saving and are only around 20 to 40 watts at most, so there’s no need to worry that much.
How frequently should I run my air purifier?
To get the most out of your air purifier, it should run all day, every day. This is especially the case during pollen or allergy season when the air is constantly filled with pollutants and allergens. Don’t worry about electricity costs – most air purifiers are low on electric consumption even at the highest speeds.
If you run it all day, you don’t have to worry much about pollution in the air that could harm your health – just sit back, relax (or do your daily duties), and let the air purifier remove chemical fumes, dust, and pollutants from the air. Here are the most critical instances when you should run your air purifier all day:
- During allergy month or season
- During wildfire season or a report of a wildfire
- Unhealthy air quality index alerts by the authorities
- Volcano ashfall alerts
- If you live near a factory or industrial park
- Near major roads and highways
How often should you run an air purifier in your room?
Regardless if you have the best air purifier for a dorm room, a bedroom, or the living room, we recommend running it 24 hours a day – especially if you live in a highly polluted area, such as a city or urban place, where pollution levels are typically off the roof due to vehicles and factories.
As mentioned above, a typical household air purifier will only consume 20 to 40 watts of power so it won’t be a big concern when it comes to electrical consumption and your monthly bill. But with that said, why should you run it constantly instead of 4 to 8 hours in separate schedules?
The answer is simple – when you leave your room unfiltered from dust for quite some time, your air purifier will have to start from scratch in cleaning the air. This makes the air purifier motor and filter suffer more than usual, which often leads to more electrical consumption.
How do I know if I need an air purifier?
So, how do you know when it’s time to buy an air purifier for your home, office, room, or personal space? Fortunately, there are signs that it’s time to do so. If you’ve done all kinds of cleaning and still answered “yes” to the questions below, it might be time to get an air purifier:
- Does your indoor air feel musty?
- Do your allergies and/or asthma worsen indoors?
- Do you or your family members get sick often?
- Is there a lingering smell of mold?
- Do you or your family members have trouble sleeping (and are snoring often)?
- Do you receive guests often and do they smoke indoors?
If you’re asking “do air purifiers help with cigarette smoke?” then the answer is yes – air purifiers can clean up smoke particles from the air, which is why you’ll need one if you often have guests and/or family members who tend to smoke indoors.
FAQs
What is AQI or air quality index?
It is a unit of measurement that dictates how dirty or clean the air is in a given area, such as a city, a town, a community, and the like. The scale is from 0 to 500, with 300 typically a danger zone and anything below 50 as safe to breathe in.
Is it okay to run the air purifier at night?
Absolutely! Air purifiers have a timer for a reason – for you to run the unit all night without having to get up in the morning feeling uncomfortable with a stuffy nose. If you notice that you snore often, why not try sleeping with an air purifier? You’ll notice the difference after a few days of use.
How long before an air purifier cleans a room?
It depends on various factors, such as the size of the room, the power of the air purifier, and the pollution levels. Typically, a small room will only take 30 minutes to 1 hour but a larger room might take a while – as much as 3 hours. This is why most people use two or more air purifiers for large rooms.
Should I leave the air purifier running while I’m not home?
Definitely – the reason is the same as why it’s okay to run the air purifier all night. Most air purifiers have an automatic mode that adjusts the fan speed depending on the air pollution levels, so you don’t have to do much. You can also turn on its “eco mode” to further save electricity costs when using the air purifier.
Conclusion
To wrap it up, the answer to the question “how often should you run an air purifier?” is simple – run it all day (24/7) because you never know when pollution might enter your home or personal space. Think of it as a security guard that keeps your home clean from pollutants that might ruin your health.
You will conserve the motor’s lifespan in the long run and clean the air more efficiently if you let your air purifier run all day – even at a low speed. We hope that this guide helped you maximize the usage of your air purifier to maintain clean and healthy air indoors!
