Air purifiers are pretty neat devices that can help alleviate allergy symptoms related to air pollutants such as pollen and pet dander as well as dust mites when you’re stuck indoors with the windows and doors shut tight.
But even though they can do many things to help regulate your indoor air and protect you from the effects of indoor air pollution, isn’t there sometimes you got to be thinking, wouldn’t it be better to just open a window?
Table of Contents
Air purifier vs. Open window
Times when opening a window makes more sense than running an air purifier
1. Kitchen smells
Wouldn’t it be lovely if all the smells coming from the kitchen where blueberry muffins and and the smell of freshly cooked bacon creeping into your room as your waking up?
Unfortunately that’s not always the case.
Odors like bacon grease burning on electric burners and souffles forgotten in the oven can leave your house with streams of smoke pulsating through the air.
Face it. There’s not much in air purifiers going to do add that moment in time. Opening the doors and the windows is about the only option you have at that point.
2. In the late morning and mid-afternoon.
In other words the two times of the day when traffic is calmed down and pollutants from exhaust aren’t as existent.
Fresh air flowing through the house during these times of day is very beneficial to reducing the amount of bacterium in the air.
The sun is the most powerful UV disinfecting lamps known to man.
Opening a window so that the stale indoor air can exchange with the vibrant ionic outdoor air is vital to avoid airborne bacteria from saturating the indoor air.
3. Winter
Yes, you heard right. Winter. The same air causing condensation to build up on your windows in the winter can also cause mold and mildew.
Though it may be freezing outside, it is still important to open the windows for a little while during the day even if it’s just for a few minutes.
That will help exchange the damp Moldy for cleaner air insufficiently ventilate your home to keep mold from becoming an issue.
Can you run an air purifier with the window open?
There’s absolutely no problem with running an air purifier with the window open. A window open on the opposite side of the house will actually help the air to circulate better and move through your air purifier easier.
The same thing with an ionizer.
An open window on the other side of the room can help ions move through the air a little further before they dissipate.
There are a couple of caveats to this though.
Opening all the windows will just mean that you’re trying to filter the outdoor air. Not exactly the point.
Also placing your air purifier right next to a window is useless because again you are mainly filtering the outdoor air.
An open window right next to an ionizer in a air purifier will just suck all the ions out the window.
Are there times when you should only use an air purifier and not open a window?
1. Air pollution
1. Air pollution- Yes when the outdoor air quality is bad, for instance if you live next to a factory or a highway, you should run your air purifier without any open doors or windows open.
Unfortunately many people do not have the luxury opening the windows because of the amount of exhaust
Streaming in their local airstream.
2. Air conditioning
Opening the windows or doors with the air conditioner on is a waste of energy because it lets the cool air out.
But also because most air conditioners especially central air conditioners are extremely Dusty and full of mold spores, keeping an air purifier running with the HVAC running is imperative keeping the air clean.
After all the main point of an air purifier is to clean the air indoors when you do not have access to fresh clean air coming into the room.
Conclusion
Air purifiers are a supplement to fresh air.
Fresh air is naturally sanitize because of the ultraviolet rays of the sun disinfecting and invigorating the air the ions.
Opening a window in replacing the stale indoor air with fresh air is always preferable to having two use an artificial air cleaner.
There are also times been an air purifier just will not cut it.
Extra strong fumes from a cleaner or a batch of cookies being burned in the oven can leave the air too polluted at once for an air purifier to do much about it.
Opening the doors and the windows is what you got at that point.
But with all that being said, there are definitely times when an air purifier is needed to maintain healthy are inside of your home.
Unfortunately we all can’t live in an area where cool country air refreshes our day by simply opening a window.
When the air outside just means smog,
Keeping the Windows shut and the air purifiers running is essential.
Exhaust fumes from high traffic and factories can cause serious health issues.
Also there are different times of the year mainly the cold winter months and the hot summer months when it is much harder to schedule a time when opening the windows for a few minutes a day becomes feasible.
It’s during those times that you were relying on heating and Air conditioning to control the climate inside of your home.
Thank God you have heating and air but along with being cool and warm comes a generation of indoor air pollution.
Air purification becomes essential when it becomes essential to keep the doors and window seal tight to prevent the outdoor air from coming inside because of the elements or better quality from smog.
