If you already own an air purifier, you’ll know just how transformative these appliances can be. They spend their days quietly removing airborne nasties and keeping your home’s air quality steady amidst ever-changing pollen, dust, dander, and smoke levels. But have you ever wondered if you could get more out of your air purifier?
I’m a huge fan of the best air purifiers, and one thing I love is that they’re relatively hands-off. The smarter the appliance is, the less you need to get involved - and the more you can leave it to its own devices to work its magic and serve as one of the most important things people with healthy air quality always have.
However, a downside of this hands-off appliance is that we often forget about them, compromising their efficiency in the process. That’s why I asked air quality experts for their top tips on getting the most out of an air purifier - especially during these tricky spring and summer months. This is what they said.
1. Keep it on all day, every day
As we all do with electrical appliances in the home, you may worry about how much it costs to run an air purifier and turn it off periodically to combat rising energy bills. But if you want to make the most of your air purifier, you should keep it on all day, every day.
This is echoed by Lars Dunberger, Technology Development Manager for air purifier experts, Blueair. He says, ‘Our recommendation is to run your air purifier continuously to ensure efficient air circulation and low pollutant levels in your room.’
Of course, you don’t have to leave your air purifier on all the time if you don’t have any specific air quality issues. But if you’re using an air purifier to help with allergies, you live in a particularly busy city or want to combat rising dust levels in your home, it’s advised to keep it on for as long as possible. Ideally, all day and all night.
This ensures that the pollutant-busting appliance is working hard every minute to remove airborne nasties from your home and constantly releases fresh, healthy air for you and your family to breathe.
2. Position it perfectly
One of the things I wish I knew before buying an air purifier is that positioning is way more important than you’d think. And if you’re worried your air purifier isn’t working to its full potential, it may be time to rethink where you keep it.
Lars advises, ‘For optimal results, your air purifier should be placed in the room where you spend the most time, or where the air quality is the worst.’ This may be your bedroom, so that you can sleep better with hay fever, or near a window on hot days, where you have no option but to open it.
However, you also need to be mindful of the items you place around your air purifier. Johnny Liang, Air Purifier Specialist at Levoit, explains, ‘At the same time, avoid blocking the unit with furniture to ensure proper airflow. Good placement can significantly improve and stabilise overall purification performance.’
With this in mind, it’s well worth understanding how many air purifiers you need. And if you have multiple family members who would benefit from the purifying qualities of this appliance, it could work in your favour to buy one for the shared living spaces, and then buy more for each individual bedroom.
3. Keep up with maintenance
I will continually shout from the rooftops that air purifiers are worth it - but it’s fair to say that there is a caveat to this. That’s because an air purifier is only as good as the maintenance you give it, and to get more out of it in spring, you need to keep up with this.
Part of this maintenance is replacing the air purifier filter when necessary. And Lars explains, ‘Depending on the placement and how often you have your air purifier active, we would recommend changing the filter every 6-12 months for optimum efficiency.’
Most HEPA filter air purifiers (the most effective type) also come equipped with a pre-filter, which typically traps larger particles before they reach the main filter. These also require cleaning and maintenance, but can generally be vacuumed or wiped with a cloth.
It’s important to clean the pre-filter regularly, about once a week. Doing all of this will ensure it’s constantly working at optimal performance. And as Lars says, ‘Using a filter which is filled with dust or saturated with odours will not bring dangerous components to your home. But if the filter is full, it may be difficult for the clean air to come out, and it might damage the air purifier in the long run.’
Shop our top-rated air purifiers
Suitable for spaces up to 48m², this is the best air purifier we've tested overall - and it's held its place at the top for over two years now. With an impressive HEPA filter, it can filter 99.97% of airborne particles down to 0.1 microns in size. It's also Quiet Mark certified.
Reactive and easy to maintain, this Shark air purifier uses CleanSenseIQ technology to adjust itself when your air quality drops. The filter doesn't need replacing for a whopping five years, and it comes with an Anti-Odour cartridge that releases a lovely scent while on, too.
Quiet and powerful, this air purifier is suitable for larger spaces up to 100 m². The easy-to-use Dyson app allows you to customise your settings and your schedules at the push of a button, and it reacted extremely quickly during testing.
Don't let your air quality get you down this spring. Make the most of these air purifier hacks instead!
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