July 15, 2024

Portable vs. Whole-Home Air Purifiers

While you can’t see it, the air you are breathing right now likely has bacteria, mold, pollutants, and viruses in it. Gas combustion from cooking on a natural gas stove, mold growth, and wildfire smoke can all cause your home’s air quality to plummet. Fortunately, whole-home and portable air purifiers can help filter out harmful contaminants and protect your respiratory health.

What Are Whole-Home Purifiers?

A whole-home air purifier filters the air inside your home. It can reduce allergens, like pollen and dust. Additionally, it can remove chemicals and other contaminants. If you don’t want to replace your entire heating, air conditioning, and ventilation system to purify your air, a whole-home purifier is a good choice.

Designed with electrostatic and ultrasonic technology, whole-home purifiers can remove any particles that are greater than 0.3 microns from the air. While each system is different, they typically use a high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter. This kind of filter is incorporated into your ventilation system so that the purified air can circulate throughout your home.

Other than HEPA filters, purifiers can use ion filtering or physical barriers. With ion filters, electronic filters use a high voltage to attract and gather particles. Alternatively, physical barriers, like standard filters, can remove particles from the air mechanically.

How Are Whole-Home and Portable Purifiers Different?

Whole-home and portable air purifiers are different in a few key ways. Unlike a whole-home purifier, a portable air purifier is only designed to cover limited square footage. They are often designed with high-quality HEPA filters, which can capture up to 99.97% of airborne particles that are greater than 0.3 microns.

For perspective, a typical hair strand is 50 microns in diameter. That means one hair is 166 times wider than the particles captured by the HEPA filter. While portable purifiers tend to be quite small, their diminutive size means they can be easily transported from one place to another.

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Portable Air Purifiers

Portable air purifiers provide a number of important benefits. They are easy to transport between rooms and fairly affordable. With a portable purifier, you can clean the air in the room you occupy the most.

In trade for these advantages, portable purifiers have a few downsides. If you want to purify your entire house, you will need multiple units because each unit can only filter a certain square footage. They also can’t absorb odors from your ductwork because they are separate from the HVAC system.

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Whole-Home Air Purifiers

Whole-home purification is useful if you want your entire home to have clean air. It operates autonomously and can decrease foul odors in your home. In addition to providing high-quality purification, it can prevent bacteria, viruses, and mold from harming your health.

However, in trade for these benefits, whole-home purification requires a more lengthy installation process. It also must be compatible with your HVAC system’s existing design.

What Are the Types of Whole-Home Purifiers?

At Scott-Lee Heating Company, we generally prefer whole-home purifiers because of how effective they are at purifying air in the entire home. We can also install different air-quality products, like dehumidifiers and humidifiers. Depending on your comfort needs and the size of your St. Louis home, there are several different types of whole-home purifiers you may want to invest in.

Flat Filters

In reality, you may already have a type of whole-home filtration system installed in your house. If you have a forced-air furnace, your furnace includes a matted fiberglass filter. This filter should be changed monthly.

You need to replace this filter to protect your air quality and prevent your furnace from getting overworked. If the filter is clogged by dust, the furnace will struggle to pull air through the filter. To improve the filtration quality, invest in pleated filters. Some pleated filters have electrostatic charges that can attract pet dander and pollen.

Electronic Filters

These filters are excellent at removing smoke particles from the air. They can be incorporated into ductwork. As air travels through the ducts, the filter sends out a high-voltage current. This gives the particles an electrical charge. On the other side of the unit, a collector plate uses the opposite charge to attract the particles.

Electronic filters are excellent for homes that have a lot of tiny smoke particles. Because these particles are so small, it’s hard for media filters to capture them. In tests, electronic filters were 30 times more effective than regular fiberglass filters. Plus, you never have to replace them. They simply need to be cleaned every few months.

Extended Media Filters

Because electronic filters can produce some ozone, people who have respiratory issues may want a different option. Extended media filters are known for being great at purifying the air without making ozone or other byproducts. They use filtration media to filter pollutants from the system’s airflow. In general, these filters must be replaced on a yearly basis.

Ultraviolet Filters

Finally, you can also find whole-home air purifiers that use ultraviolet (UV) filters. These filters are especially useful for people who are concerned about germs. A UV filter can be added to a whole-house electronic precipitator.

Once the UV filter is installed, the light can kill bacteria and viruses. This is why they are so popular in hospitals. However, UV filters can only kill viruses that get close enough to the filter, which is one drawback to using them.

How Long Does It Take to Install a Whole-Home Purifier?

When you work with a professional HVAC company, it doesn’t take long to install a whole-home air purifier. In most cases, these systems can be installed in two hours or less. If you must also install other HVAC components, the installation time can vary.

The Verdict: Should You Get a Whole-Home or Portable Purifier?

While each household is different, a whole-home purifier is generally a better choice. Portable purifiers don’t cover as much space, and they aren’t as powerful.

Additionally, whole-home purifiers tend to be much more cost-effective over the long run. If you use portable air purifiers, you will have to buy and maintain multiple units in order to purify your whole house. In comparison, whole-home purifiers only need to be bought once.

As a side benefit, whole-home purifiers can decrease the costs of maintaining your HVAC system. Because they lower pollution and contaminants in the air, they keep your HVAC system from getting clogged. Dirty filters are one of the main reasons an HVAC system can become less effective. By preventing clogs, purifiers can protect the rest of your HVAC system from damage and save you money.

Learn More About Purifiers for Your Home

St. Louis residents can enjoy cleaning their home’s air with whole-home purifiers. At Scott-Lee Heating Company, we work with residents and business owners to design the right air purification systems. We also help with residential heating and cooling and commercial HVAC services.

To learn more about whole-home purifiers in St. Louis, reach out to Scott-Lee Heating Company today.