The best air purifier for dust removal is one that uses a HEPA filter. This is an inDUSTry standard (sorry) in the air filtration business. HEPA stands for High Efficiency Particulate Air and has been around for over 50 years. There are other filter types available that are more expensive and less efficient. HEPA filters are the most appropriate solution to removing dust and other allergens from the air in your home.
Another important thing to look for when purchasing an air purifier is it’s CADR rating. CADR stands for Clean Air Delivery Rate. This number is found by multiplying the fraction of particles of a given size removed by the filter times the number of times the filter will clean all the air in a room. Wikipedia has a slightly less confusing explanation here. To summarize that in an easier way – the higher the number the cleaner your air will be. This is a nice number to use since it combines the room size and how good the filter is in one number.
Manufacturers generally list the room size that a specific air purifier is good for. They want you happy with their product. It is possible to find a small air purifier with a very high CADR rating that won’t work if you want to run it in a very large room. This may become an issue if you want to treat a living space with an open floor plan or a garage with many stored chemicals.
The Best Air Purifier for Dust Removal
Today we go over many different things to consider when looking for an air purifier to manage airborne dust in your home. We already went over a few numbers to be aware of when making your purchase. Further down the article addresses things like placement of your air purifier and some features to avoid as well. Later on we give a short list of air purifiers that meet all of the requirements laid out in this article.
The furnace in your home does filter all the air that passes through it, be sure to check the filter and clean or replace it as necessary. If the filter is too dirty it will send old dust back into your house when it is running. Most furnace filters use the same HEPA material that the best air purifiers for dust removal use. The furnace filters are generally thicker since they need to handle much more air.
A room sized air purifier is still useful since the furnace filter is only working while the furnace is running. The best air purifier for removing dust from your air is definitely a stand alone appliance and not the one on your furnace. It would be pretty impractical to have your furnace constantly running just to filter your air. For starters, room sized air purifiers are much quieter. They are also cost much less to run. They are not responsible for moving all of the air in your home the same way that your furnace does. This means they can run with a much smaller fan and require substantially less electricity.
Most Effective Placement for an Air Purifier
Make sure to place the air purifier in a spot where it will be most effective. This means access to the most air and away from other furniture and walls as much as possible.
In a bedroom the most effective place will be near the door. As people and pets move in and out of the room they will agitate the air. This means the dust in the air and on surfaces will move around most in higher traffic areas. It may seem a little backward since most people will want to put the air purifier on or near their nightstand.
Imagine there is a radius or circle of clean air that extends out from the air purifier. If you put the air purifier on an piece of furniture in the corner of a room, this circle is cut down to a quarter of what it could be. It is generally never practical to put an air purifier in the middle of a room. It’s possible to get pretty close if you have an open floor plan though.
The air purifier will eventually clean all of the air in the room it is running in regardless of where it is placed. Over time dust, pollen and pet dander will diffuse into the area the air purifier is working in and be captured by the filter. Optimal placement can cut down on this time.
Ionizers: are they a positive or a negative feature?
In your search for the best air purifier for dust removal, stay far away from those that use an ionizer. Ionizers use electric charge to treat the air that moves through the appliance. This can actually do the reverse and allow small particles to remain airborne for longer. The ozone they produce is also potentially harmful to human lungs. Most people purchase an air purifier to help deal with allergies or colds. Lung irritation and damage is the last thing they would want to be dealing with.
Best Air Purifiers for Dust Removal – A Review
Below we review a few air purifiers that have all of the ideal qualities we just talked about. They’ll still have some differences like price and effective area. We highlight those differences here.
Levoit LV-H132
The Levoit LV-H132 is the only model on this page that has a built in nightlight. The nightlight is an LED and has two brightness settings. This is an extra feature that has nothing to do with removing dust from the air. If you keep this air purifier on your nightstand it does add some nice functionality.
It could reasonably fit on your nightstand as it has a very small size. It operates almost silently on the lowest fan speed. At higher fan speeds this model does make some noise. This is potentially useful if white noise helps you sleep at night.
CADR and recommended room size are not advertised.
It has a very clean, almost spaceship appearance with the metallic finish on the filter guard and the soft teal light on top. Consider this when you think about how it will look wherever you place it.
Filter changes are easily done by twisting off the bottom panel. The manufacturer recommends replacing the filter every 6 months.
Philips Air Purifier 2000
The Philips Air Purifier 2000 has a laundry list of great features. It has a very high CADR rating of 211 and a recommended room size of 277 square feet. This will treat most bedrooms with no problem.
It is the only air purifier we review today that carried an Energy Star Certification and an automatic shutoff. The Philips Air Purifier 2000 has sensors to measure contaminants in the air. When it determines the air has been sufficiently cleaned it will shut itself down. There is a ring on the front of the air purifier that will change color to indicate air quality. There is also a numerical display on top of the unit that shows air quality in a more exact way. You can see the ring from across the room but will need to be right next to the air purifier to read the display on the top.
The air quality sensor will also modify the fan speed if you have it set on an automatic mode.
The air purifier also has a filter replacement alert. As a general guideline the manufacturer recommends replacing the HEPA filter every 12 months and the carbon filter every 6 months. This will vary based on how often you use the appliance and how dirty the air is that it needs to filter.
You can change the filter by removing the back panel.
Hamilton Beach TrueAir 04383A
The Hamilton Beach TrueAir 04383A is the more versatile in terms of placement compared to the other air purifiers we review today. The unit can be oriented horizontally or vertically. This gives it a lot of options for placement that other models may not have.
Hamilton Beach does not advertise the CADR for the TrueAir 04383A but they do have a recommended room size of 160 square feet. This would be most effective in smaller spaces like a cubicle at work. Like we talked about earlier in the article, you can still use this in a bigger room but don’t expect immediate results.
The feature that sets this air purifier apart from the others we review today is cost effectiveness. Be sure to check current prices, but this one is usually the most affordable out of the three we went over today. Also, the filter can be vacuumed to clean it. As long as you maintain it properly, you may never need to buy a replacement filter. Over time the filter may wear out beyond what simple cleaning will fix. Hamilton Beach does offer replacement filters.
The Best Air Purifier for Dust Removal is…
Completely up to you! As long as the air purifier has the features we talked about in the beginning of the article, it will do a fine job of removing dust from the air. We went over a quick review of three of them today to give you a good idea of some options out there. There are other models that are very effective for dust removal that we did not mention today. Some of them have high end features like Wi-Fi capability that will communicate with your phone. We wanted to keep it simple though and provide some solid answers to the question of the best air purifier for dust removal. If you have any of your own recommendations leave a comment below and we’ll consider adding it to the list!
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