So, you’ve gone out and gotten yourself an air purifier. But to get the best return on your investment, purifier placement is key.
Where is the best place in your home to place your new air purifier? Here are some tips to help with the decision.
Which Room? Know Your Needs
Placing your air purifier in the room where you spend the most time – or, wherever the air quality is worst – is your best bet, but its all contingent on your specific situation.
Bad allergies keeping you up at night? Putting your purifier in your bedroom (and running it overnight) will likely do wonders for your nasal cavities.
Allergic to cats, but have six anyway? A well-placed purifier in your living room will go a long way toward eliminating floating dander, pet hair and other allergens that make your day-to-day life a drag.
If you have a smoker in the home, the air purifier should go where the odor is so it can suck up those impurities in the air.
Air purifiers have an intake and an output, and both of these need to be kept clear and open. As a rule of thumb, your purifier should have 1 to 2 feet of space on all sides in order to operate the most proficiently.
Kitchens are another popular place for air purifiers, because of lingering cooking odors.
[Note: make sure you are getting the right type of air purifier for the job. A HEPA purifier, on its own, may not be right for your kitchen, but could be perfect for your bedroom. Likewise, a carbon filtered-purifier is perfect for your kitchen and smoking rooms – but won’t do much for your pet allergies.]
Where in the Room? Consider Air Flow
The two biggest issues to consider when trying to decide where to place your air purifier is where within the room would be the safest as well as where the airflow will be sufficient.
As far as safety is concerned, you do not want to place your air purifier in a place where someone may trip over it or stub their toes. This does not mean, however, that you should tuck it away in a far corner. Nobody puts air purifier in the corner.
Here’s why: Air purifiers have an intake and an output, and both of these need to be kept clear and open. As a rule of thumb, your purifier should have 1 to 2 feet of space on all sides in order to operate the most proficiently. There are even some models that take air from all sides, and none of these should be placed against a wall or in a corner.
If you want a unit that can be tucked up against the wall there are models that have an intake on the front and an outlet at the top. You will need to consider where you want to place the purifier when you buy one, and if you already have one make sure to allow enough space.
Other Tips to Remember
- Air purifiers are the lone wolves of the small electronics pack. Putting them near other small electronics will create a bit of an adversarial relationship because other electronics can work on similar wavelengths, which will cause interference. So, don’t place them near TV’s, microwaves or stereo equipment, but computers are ok.
- You should also know that air purifiers are going to be most effective when you’ve got all the doors and windows shut. If they’re not shut, the air purifier will try to suck air in from the outside. Your purifier is already hard at work cleaning the air in your home, and letting in other particles from the outside air will make it less effective in cleaning the air you are breathing in.
So, there you have it: a quick and comprehensive guide to placing your air purifier. Now go forth and breathe unsullied air!
Photo credit: Oyvind Solstad via Flickr CC License
[…] purifier, there are several big questions you need to ask yourself. We’ve already covered one: where in a room to put your purifier for maximum […]
I’ve owned purifiers in the past where you’ve needed 5 ft of clearance between the wall and the device for the air flow to work correctly. It always seemed to me to be a ridiculous functionality issue. I’d like to place my purifiers in the corner and let them be, but most of them need to much clearance they end up becoming a piece of furniture.