Air Purifiers

Hi everyone,

I haven't posted here before, but have been reading and gleaning from some of the posts.

My husband and I just bought an Amaircaire 3000 air purifier. It has helped a lot as the air in our rental home is really bad. Since getting the air purifier I can breathe a lot better, the air no longer smells of dust so badly I can taste it (it's not that I don't dust - it's an old house. LOL...), and anyway, I have a lot more energy. But I also noticed it seems to make the air really dry. I started to get a very dry and itchy nose and felt a bit more thirsty than usual within a day or two of having it on. I am thinking we should get a humidifier as that may solve the problem, but I'm not sure? So my question is: Has anyone else found that an air purifier has made the air dry? if so, what was your solution? Or did you just get used to it?

Second question: The model we have blows the clean air downward to the floor through the little vents at the bottom of the unit. There is another model for a bit more money that blows the air upward. I am also wondering if the air blowing downward is perhaps stirring up dust in the carpet, thus my itchy nose! Does anyone have any experience with these or opinions to share? We JUST bought this purifier and may want to exchange it for the upward air flow one.

TIA for any feedback you can share,
manyembers

I have never owned an air purifier but it makes sense that if it's blowing toward the floor then definately you are going to be getting carpet fibers, dust, hair, or whatnot floating around the air. Just as a side question, do you vacuum before or after you dust? Always dust after you vacuum because vacuuming stirs up the debris (dust, dirt etc) and wait about a hour or two before you dust since that is how long it can take for the dust to settle after vacuuming (I used to sell expensive vacuums and I learned some valuable info hehehe).

As for it drying out the air, I have no idea but most air purifiers use negative energy. It traps allergens in the house and draws it in - purifying the air. And if you have an old dusty house, it only stands to reason that it might be drawing out the dirty moisteness of the air into the purifier. Sorry, I can't really help you with that one but excellent questions! I'm curious as to what others have to say.

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Hi Red,

Thank-you very much for the valuable info. re. dusting and vacuuming. I didn't know that actually. And I appreciate your feedback re. the air purifier...sometimes I think I'm just reading into things too much, but it's nice to know someone else could see that the downward flow of the air could be causing things to be picked up and blown around. Interesting about what you said about it drawing out the dirty moistness...there could definitely be something to that.

I hope some others will have some further advice...My husband is wondering if we should just get a bunch of smaller units - one for each room. This one is supposed to do 150 square feet but the person we bought it from said it will do much more than that, but it will just take longer. We noticed that unless it is on high it doesn't seem to reach that far, and when it's on high it's very noisy and very COLD!

Wondering what we should do...

Manyembers

I don't think an air purifier is actually going to cause dry air but if the purifier has a high powered fan, the swirling air could make it feel drier... moving air will dehydrate you faster than stagnent air.

I have a honeywell tower air purifier that says it works for 200 sq feet but I think it purifies more than that. I also try to follow Red_34's advice by Vacuum>Dust>Purify to get the best results. The purifier I use also has an IDF filter that filters out airbourne germs so I try to keep it running all the time. I'm thinking of getting another one to increase the coverage in the house.

  "if the purifier has a high powered fan, the swirling air could make it feel drier... moving air will dehydrate you faster than stagnent air..."   That makes a lot of sense!  Thanks for your input.