Are you spending more time at home than a few years ago?
The Covid pandemic has made us all change some of our previously normal habits.
Initially, we were forced to spend more time at home because of the lockdown. But for many people, it has changed how and where they spend most of their time.
Of those forced to work at home during the lockdown, many are still working from home, while others are choosing to continue working from home, and employers are more and more advertising remote work opportunities.
This allows the employer to access the best employees available in the country, or perhaps the world, not just those groomed someplace near the employer’s base of operations.
But what’s the impact of working from home on your health?
Do you get the same opportunity to exercise when you do not even must walk between your front door to your car twice a day?
What about the air you breathe? Spending more time at home can add to your heating costs in winter. To avoid wasting power, you might close the window.
We are now much more aware of the potential for coughs, colds, influenza, and Covid to hover invisibly in the air for us to inhale and fall ill.
A portable air purifier is among the solutions you can use in your home to keep the air clean, and since it is portable, it can be moved to different rooms to keep the air throughout your home clean and healthy for you and your family.
How does an Air Purifier work?
These devices clean the air to remove bad impurities, allergens, toxins and pollutants in the air. An air purifier differs from an air filter in that it only removes these impurities from the air.
The air purifier has easy settings. The fan sucks air through one or more filters. Filters are made of paper, fibers such as fiberglass, or mesh. These filters capture and neutralize pollutants and particles as the air passes through them and then the clean air is circulated back into the living area.
Indoor Air Pollutants
But how bad is the air in your home?
Indoor air quality contributes to the development of infections, chronic lung diseases such as asthma, and lung cancer.
The following is major pollutant found in homes:
Asbestos – Commonly used in products such as insulation, roofing, siding shingles, floor tiles, acoustic ceiling tiles, wallboards, textured paints, and heat-resistant fabrics until the 1980s, Old and brittle asbestos products can release tiny, even microscopic, fibers. which can stay in the air and enter your lungs when you inhale. This can cause lung damage, including cancer.
Bacteria and viruses – Most infectious respiratory diseases spread from person to person, if one person in the household has an infectious disease, they can spread it to other people. It occurs through the air or from direct or indirect contact with infected individuals.
Building products and paints – it may emit smoke or dust which may be harmful to your health. Lead, asbestos and benzene are very harmful, causing lung disease and cancer.
Carpet – It can trap pollutants such as dust mites, pet dander, cockroach allergens, particle pollution, lead, mold spores, pesticides, dirt, and dirt, and toxic gases in the air can attach to small particles that settle on the carpet. These pollutants can become airborne during vacuuming and walking on carpet.
Lead – Commonly used in paints prior to 1978, exposure can harm almost every system in the body. It can even kill. Lead builds up in our bones, liver and kidneys and can enter our blood. The effects of lead poisoning may continue after the source of exposure is removed. The nervous system is the primary target and affects both adults and youngsters.
Mold and humidity – excess moisture encourages the growth of dust mites, cockroaches, bacteria and viruses. Mold spores grow and cause asthma attacks, breathing problems.
Cigarette smoke – causes an estimated 7,330 deaths from lung cancer and 33,950 deaths from heart disease every year, even with brief exposure. This can cause cancer-causing residue to stick to furniture and walls, then re-enter the air as third-hand smoke, lingering for months.
Other air pollutants in the home include – cleaning supplies and household chemicals, cockroaches, dust mites and dirt, flooding and water damage, formaldehyde, nitrogen dioxide, pet dander, radon, home fireplaces, and volatile organic compounds.
What About Protection from Covid-19?
COVID-19 particles are thinner than a spider’s web. However, they’re all the time bound to something much larger, such as water droplets or aerosols. This means that, just like other airborne viruses and bacteria, these droplets can be removed with an air purifier.
This means that Covid-19 can be filtered by air filters which have a high-efficiency particulate absorbing filter, but may not stop direct transmission.
When an infected person sneezes, or has infected particles on their hands transferred to furniture, it takes time for the air purifier to catch these particles. It is totally possible to inhale these particles or transfer them to your body, before the air purifier captures them.
Air Purifiers Can Provide Health Protection
The filters in most air purifiers will trap and remove coarse molecules right down to 5 microns or less. These can include dust mites and pollen.
To remove smaller particles, you need an air purifier with a high-efficiency filter that uses a network of dense fibers and layers of intricate braids to remove pollutants and allergens as small as 2.5 microns.
If you want an air purifier because you are allergic to animal dander shed by dogs, cats, guinea pigs, rabbits and hamsters, you’ll want an air purifier with a high-efficiency filter.
Ultraviolet filters are used in some air purifiers. It uses light to destroy biological impurities such as mold and bacteria. Other air purifiers use activated charcoal to remove gases such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and smoke particles. This air purifier can even relieve allergies.
Most pollutant particles are filtered out effectively by air purifiers, even though some will remain on soft and hard surfaces such as walls and furniture. The airborne particles that are drawn out of the air will depend upon the type of air purifier and filter it uses.
