How to pick the right air purifier for your home as wildfire smoke descends

In recent years, wildfire smoke has ravaged large swaths of the United States — from Northern California’s devastating 2020 wildfire season, to the orange-brown haze that has drifted from Canada into the eastern half of the country this spring and summer. Major cities such as San Francisco, New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C. have taken turns experiencing some of the worst air quality in the world.Get more news about home air filter,you can vist our website!

There are a number of precautions you can take if your air quality is compromised. In addition to wearing a mask, staying indoors and upgrading your home’s HVAC filters, you can try a portable air purifier, also known as an air cleaner, to reduce hazardous pollutants inside your home.

How do air purifiers work?
Air purifiers are designed to clean the air in a single room, using filters or electronic air cleaners to remove particles and gaseous air pollutants or kill microorganisms.

Studies have shown that the fine particles known as PM2.5 — which make up most of the particles in the wildfire smoke — can be reduced by the use of portable air purifiers.

The best purifiers have a HEPA filter and a large fan that can push air through a fine mesh to trap particles, The Washington Post has reported. Models with a carbon filter can absorb odors and reduce the smell of smoke indoors.

The U.S. government has not established any standard to determine how well an air cleaner works, other than that used by the military, the Environmental Protection Agency says. There are also standards set by private trade associations.

“Standards for air cleaners now focus only on particle removal,” the EPA says. No standards assess “the comparative ability of air cleaners to remove gaseous pollutants or radon and its progeny.”
How to choose the correct size for your space
Look at the air purifier’s clean-air delivery rate, or CADR. The higher this number, the more particles the purifier or cleaner can filter and the larger the area it can serve, the EPA says. Presuming a ceiling height of eight feet, the EPA recommends devices of a minimum CADR of 65 for a 100-square-foot room.

This increases in proportion to the surface size of the room, meaning the EPA advises a minimum CADR of 130 for a 200-square-foot room, a CADR of 195 for a 300-square-foo room and so on.