This is a question people often have about improving their home’s indoor air quality. The topic of air quality in buildings has become more important than ever over the last few years, and our customers want to know the best path toward healthier air. With so many options available for cleaner indoor air quality, it can feel overwhelming to anyone unfamiliar with HVAC services. This is why people sometimes boil their concerns down to the question: “Air filter or air purifier?”
The answer to the question is … you can have both. This isn’t an either/or situation. Often, the best way for a house to have great indoor air quality is with both an air filter and air purifier installation in Vancouver, WA.
Air Filters
Mechanical air filters work in a basic way: they trap particles in a mesh of fibers. Filters can effectively clear out most particles as small as .3 microns, which works to eliminate dust, lint, dander, and other larger particles. The limitation of air filtration systems is they have an upper limit on how strong they can be for an HVAC system.
The powerful filters used in hospitals and commercial buildings are too thick for residential homes—they’ll not only stop contaminants, but they’ll also stop airflow as well, and that’s bad news for comfort.
Air Purifiers
Starting with air filters in a house is often a good idea. But if you can’t have a filter strong enough to trap all the unwanted pollutants in the air, an air purifier is a great second line of defense. Air purifiers don’t use physical barriers against airflow, but instead, remove pollutants using ionization fields or ultraviolet light. There are several different types of purifiers, and when you entrust installation to professionals, they’ll match your filters with the air purifier that will do the best job at thoroughly cleaning the air.
The Air Scrubber
One system installation we often recommend for our customers is the Air Scrubber. The Air Scrubber takes an active approach to clean indoor air. Rather than passive filtration or targeting a specific area with air purifier action, the Air Scrubber sends out “active agents” into a home’s air to reduce pathogens.
An Air Scrubber can be 50 times more powerful than mechanical filters, and it affects a wide range of pollutants: dust, mold spores, dander, pollen, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and up to 99.9% of the harmful contaminants circulating through a house. It also offers deodorizing power, which filters and many air purifiers don’t. Ask us about the possibility of using an Air Scrubber in your house.
We Are Your Air Quality Pros!
Clawson has an expert team who can help you discover the combination of filters and purifiers to turn your house into a bastion of healthy air and better comfort. Our technicians work with other indoor air quality solutions as well, such as heat and energy recovery ventilators, and we can improve your ductwork to keep it from harming air quality.
Speak to our team today to find out more about what we can do for your home’s air quality. Clawson Heating & Air Conditioning is “Connecting People to Comfort”!