With temperatures warming up all over the country, it is a sure sign that spring is finally here. For some that means enjoying the great outdoors after months of being cooped up. And for others, it means their allergies are about to kick in BIG time.
If you suffer from Hay fever, also known as allergic rhinitis, you most likely deal with horrible symptoms each spring such as a runny nose, itchy eyes, congestion, sneezing and sinus pressure. These symptoms are caused by an overactive immune response that sees allergens such as grass and tree pollen as a threat.
But this response can do more than make you miserable. It can make you feel tired and compromise your work or schoolwork. For some, allergies can turn into chronic sinus infections. And still for others, allergies can trigger a dangerous asthma attack.
How Can an Air Purifier Help with Hay Fever?
Each year many people deal with their allergies in a few different ways:
- Some just deal with it and feel miserable for a few months
- Some try allergy shots
- And some choose to take prescription or over-the-counter medications
And while the last two bullet points can certainly help alleviate some allergy symptoms some of the time, they really only act as a Band Aid on the problem. That’s because they don’t get to the root cause.
The bottom line is, there is something in your environment that is causing your immune system to freak out. It stands to reason that if you can eliminate the allergen from your environment, you stand a much better chance of living symptom-free.
And that’s where a good air purifier can help tremendously.
Air purifiers work by removing particulate pollutants from your home’s air. These can be things like pollen but also mold spores, dust mites and pet dander. So they can help people with all sorts of allergies.
Here are some things to look for in an air purifier that will help you eliminate springtime pollen for your home’s air:
A True HEPA Filtration System
You’ve most likely heard of HEPA filters. They are very powerful at trapping even microscopic particles from the environment. But to really be sure your air purifier is working optimally, you must buy one that comes with a TRUE HEPA filtration system.
Only a TRUE HEPA filter has been certified to filter out particles a small as 0.3 microns in size. To give you an idea of just how tiny that is, consider that a human hair is typically between 50 and 75 microns in size.
So it’s important that you only look for units that use TRUE HEPA filtration. That’s step 1.
Compare CADR Ratings
Now that you have a quality filter, it’s time to make sure your air purifier has enough power to suck your home’s air through that filter. For this we need to look at something called the CADR (Clean Air Delivery Rate) rating. The CADR rate will give you an idea of how powerful your unit is for the space you need cleaned.
Generally speaking, the higher the CADR rating, the more powerful the system and the quicker the removal of the offending pollutants in your home’s environment. So to truly be effective at sucking in all of the air so the contaminants can be tapped inside the HEPA filter, the CADR rating needs to be high enough to handle the size of your room.
Look for an air purifier that has enough air volume to process all of the air in your room at least 3 times per hour. If you can find one that provides roughly 4 or 5 times per hour, that’s even better.
A Word of Caution:
Similar to how there are TRUE HEPA filters that have been independently tested to ensure quality, there are also CADR ratings that have been performed by impartial and independent companies. But there are those manufacturers that do not submit their units for testing. Instead they use their own in-house results in their marketing.
To be certain you are getting a unit there is optimized to remove allergens from your home, it’s important you look for a seal on the box or in the online description that says “AHAM (Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers) Certified.”
Pay Attention to Room Size
A lot of people spend money on air purifiers that never really seem to work because they either haven’t paid attention to the manufacturer’s recommendation of room size, or the manufacturer was not being very honest about the size of room their unit could handle.
Much like an air conditioner can only cool and dehumidify a certain size room effectively, an air purifier can only clean the air effectively if the unit was built to handle that size. It’s a good idea to A) take an accurate square foot measurement of your room and B) assume that what’s on the box is an overstatement. So if your room is 500 square feet, you’ll most likely be safe if you look for a unit that says it can handle 750 sq. ft. or larger.
We Make it Easier
We want you to get the exact right air purifier that will bring some much-needed relief to your life. That’s why we make it incredibly simple to search through our inventory.
Here are the air purifiers that have been built specifically to handle Hay fever and other allergies. You can further filter by sized of room and budget.
If you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch with us. We don’t think of ourselves as being in the business of selling air purifiers. We believe we’re in the business to help people breathe easier.
