Best Air Purifiers

Buying the best air purifier or air cleaner is a decision that involves careful consideration. Factors to consider include the air purifier features, such as the type of air filter or filters used.

Also extremely important is your context, such as room size and usage scenario. Do you need a quiet unit for a small or large room? Or a no-frills air cleaner to effectively filter dust, or maybe you’re looking for odor reduction for the kitchen or tobacco smoke, etc?

All of the above are important pieces of the puzzle to help us choose the best air purifiers. In addition, it’s also important to know the essential features to look out for when selecting an air cleaner before buying one or more (I personally use 3 at home and have extensively researched many brands and models).

We now have access to information from manufacturers, independent third-party testing and real world air purifier reviews by users; but it’s all over the World Wide Web. We’ve spent countless hours compiling all that information and organized it here to help you easily assess and choose the best air purifier for your situation.

And just in case you’re wondering, the terms air purifier and air cleaner do in fact refer to exactly the same thing!

Clean Air Delivery Rate is a measure of how much clean air an air purifier purifies per minute.

Two simple, easy to remember rules of thumb to use are 1 CADR to 1.5 square feet if running an air purifier at max speed and 1 CADR to 1 square foot if running at low or medium. So with a bit of simple Math, a unit with a CADR rating of 100 is good for a 100 to 150 square foot room. Pretty handy formula to keep in mind!

Choosing an air purifier with a capacity that is inadequate for the size of the room is one of the most common mistakes people make (usually in the interest of saving a few dollars). This results in the air purifier having to overwork by constantly running at maximum speed. This in turn generates high noise levels, consumes more power and can lead to shorter machine lifespan due to more wear and tear. What’s worse is that the air in the room is not properly filtered which defeats the whole point of buying the purifier in the first place!

It is much wiser to choose a unit with over capacity, that can comfortably clean the air in a room at medium and low settings. In other words, if your room is 300 square feet, I would recommend an air purifier with a CADR of 300 (1:1 ratio), or at least a minimum of 200 (1:1.5 ratio) or more.

The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers is an organization that independently tests home appliances to verify they perform according to manufacturer’s specifications. The good things about AHAM testing is that brands who volunteer to participate cannot send units of their choosing for testing. Instead, AHAM randomly selects products at any time and sends them to an independent lab for testing. This prevents manufacturers from pulling a Volkswagen on tests! It’s also worth noting that AHAM Verified products have room capacity ratings and CADR ratings for smoke, dust and pollen. You can look for the AHAM VERFIDE mark when selecting home appliances.

This can be an important factor for people who are sensitive to noise, or if choosing an air purifier for use in a bedroom. Some people actually prefer to have a unit that generates some noise as white noise helps them to sleep more easily. Note that the operating noise level will vary depending on the speed setting selected. Of course you can always set to high for 20 minutes or so to filter the air initially, then switch to low to minimize the noise level and maintain filtration while sleeping or watching TV.

How do you go about selecting a suitable air purifier?

We recommend the following checklist:

1. Start with your Objective:

   • Is it mainly to remove particles such as dust and pollen? Then choose a unit with a True HEPA filter.
   • Do you need other features such as a carbon filter to reduce odors?
   • Is it for severe respiratory illness or infection control? Then consider a Hyper HEPA from IQAir.

2. Room Priority:

   • This can be determined by where the most time is spent. The bedroom is often the priority since it’s where most people spend 8 hours every night breathing in deeply while sleeping. It could also be the living or dining area if the goal is to filter air of cooking or tobacco smoke, if there is a smoker in the house.

3. Capacity:

   • Bigger is better. A unit with a higher cleaning capacity, run on low speed, is usually more effective and quieter compared to running a smaller unit on a high speed. The product label shows the maximum capacity so it’s often wiser to measure your rooms in square feet, then choose a unit with a room capacity rating that’s 50% or 1.5 times higher than your room size. So for a 200 square foot room, you should ideally get an air purifier rated for a 300 square foot room capacity.