Judging Your IAQ
If you've lived in a home for years, and feel relatively healthy, you may find it difficult to believe that the indoor air quality in your home could be so poor and possibly hazardous to your health. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), various health agencies and private institutes, and of course, air purifier manufacturers, say otherwise, so how do you know the truth? Few people have the time, energy, money, or motivation to seek out problems, so it's easier just to let the indoor air quality (IAQ) issue go and to think later about whether an air purifier or other remedy is needed for your long term health.
Human beings are accommodating creatures and tend to adapt to their environments. Your home may smell "normal" to you, but another person (especially one who is used to having an air purifier in the home) may enter it and notice a heaviness in the air, the slight smell of mold or mustiness, odor from cooking or tobacco, or if it's new, the off-gassing of new furniture or carpet.
Those pesky dust mites that cause great concern are awfully small. When you settle into your bed after a long, hard day on sheets that are a week or two overdue for a wash, it's easy to dismiss the invisible little creatures. As you're getting ready for work, using just a spray of one product here, and a roll-on of another product there, it doesn't seem like much is going into the air. On the occasion that you burn the toast in the kitchen, or allow the vegetables to sauté a bit too long, creating a wee bit of smoke in the room, it appears to dissipate quickly. Is an air purifier or other type of ventilation needed?
As you may see from these minor incidences of chemicals or particulates released into the air, none of them are consequential. The real problem is that they are released, day after day, year after year. It's the cumulative effect that eventually causes the indoor air quality to diminish more and more, but since the process is slow and subtle, we get used to it. It's this day to day build-up that a room air purifier can be used to eliminate.
Most purchasers of a room air purifier have an "environmental awakening" the first time they dispose of a used filter. At ClearFlite Air Purifiers, we've heard many humorous stories over the years of how amazed customers were when they caught a glimpse of their used up pre-filter or HEPA filter as they transferred it into a garbage bag. "Those air purifier things really do work," they tend to exclaim. Customers have also told us after changing a filter that they now understand why the "filterless" air purifier units can't possibly work well. There's too much dust, hair, mold, and general gunk, not to mention the chemicals you can't see that are absorbed into the activated carbon, to just disappear from the air.
If you have seasonal allergies, or even mild asthma, there's no doubt that an air purifier will help, particularly in the bedroom, so you can breathe easier when sleeping. If you've lived in the same house for years and go for long periods of time without opening all of the windows, there's no doubt you've built up toxins in the home. It's impossible not to. An air purifier will make a difference in the indoor air quality in your home, and thus in your overall health. Just as day after day, year after year, toxins build up, improvements in the quality of indoor air, nurture our health day after day, year after year.
