Do air purifiers really reduce dust much?
from TheReanuKeeves@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world on 08 Nov 2025 04:34
https://lemmy.world/post/38493396
from TheReanuKeeves@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world on 08 Nov 2025 04:34
https://lemmy.world/post/38493396
#nostupidquestions
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Its a noticeable amount, but not likely all of it
When you say surface dust is unaffected I assume you mean the dust that’s already settled prior to getting a purifier right? If I were to use an air purifier I’d need to dust surfaces less often right?
Yes, though most visible dust won’t trigger the sensors on the air purifier so you’d need to run it on a manual fan setting to remove dust from the air continuously
I’ll probably have them on all day and possibly night depending how loud the one I find is
Depends on what the air purifier was filtering. Mine does PM10, PM2.5, VOC and NO2. That means it’s filtering out particles down to 2.5mm plus volatile organic compounds (smoke, aerosolized oils, water vapour with pathogens, etc) and nitrous oxide.
The filter is a multi stage filter; the PM2.5 stuff passes right through the PM10 filter.
Interestingly, if I want to clear a room of smoke, sawdust, drywall dust or similar, what works the best is running my shop vac with a HEPA filter installed until I can’t smell the dust/smoke (usually around 5 minutes) and then I turn my air filter on full blast and it clears up the air in around 20 minutes. If I just used the air filter, I’d probably clog it up and then just have to replace the comparatively expensive filter.
Should probably point out that "mm" in this case is micrometers, not millimeters.
Thank you for that clarification; I was genuinely wondering why anything smaller than 2.5 millimetres would pass through an air filter! When it comes to filtering air, 2.5 millimetres is MASSIVE
Do you have a recommendation for a budget one?
No; however, you essentially have a line between price and noise, and you need to check what they filter, how expensive the filters are, and how often they need to be replaced, as well as how much it costs to run them.
Add strong fan, profit
Yes.
They help, and they can take out airborne pathogens. Look up “Corsi-Rosenthal box” if you want to DIY a very powerful and cheap but noisy one.
You also need to get a good brand too. There are a lot of “air filters” out there that are just fans
make sure its hepa filters too, and not hepa-like.
Like air filters without a filter? Because air filters are usually just fans (with a filter in it) and that’s just perfectly normal.
IMHO the benefit is less “things are cleaner in my house” and more “I’m breathing less PM10” and such
Ah dang, I’m sick of dusting stuff
Since that’s something you care about, I will offer an out of topic advice: robot vacuums (in general: vacuuming a lot) decreases the amount of dusting you end up doing.
Depending on what's on your shelves, you might find my solution of use. Whenever things are a bit too dusty in my house I put on a filter mask and fire up an electric leaf blower. Blasts all the dust off of the various hard-to-reach surfaces and into the air. Then I either use a high-volume blower fan to circulate the air out of the house through a window (if the weather's nice) or if it's winter I just let it settle and vacuum it out of the carpet (some ends up back on the shelves, sure, but most surface area in the house is floor so it's still a net win).
Some other stuff gets knocked off the shelves in the process, but I just consider that a sign of weakness. Those things didn't deserve their prominent position on those shelves to begin with.
You are insane and I like that!
But the dust will settle on everything, including the shelves you just cleaned?
A bit, sure. But as I mentioned, the majority of the surface area in my house is the floor. I'm fine with it settling on the floor because I vacuum that with a vacuum cleaner anyway.
There's always going to be some dust on the shelves. Even if I meticulously cleaned them with the most thorough of methods more dust would immediately start accumulating anyway.
Are there dumb robot vacuums? I don’t want to buy a little spy robot that maps my apartment layout to sell to advertisers or whatever.
There are, but the mapping functionality drastically increases how well the vacuum works.
I had one like that, it’s so dumb it had to go at random and often loses the way back home. I assume they still exist. The technology has definitely improved and you can jail break most of them. Last I brought was a little spy bot, honestly, but with some attention you can either overwrite the software (and keep the physical improvements) or block it from accessing the internet. [details figures out by my partner]
valetudo.cloud
Yes, for some values of dumb. New ones? I don’t know. But many older ones have no connectivity at least.
librervac.org/Supported_Devices might be a good start (and maybe even end).
It’s the stuff I have on shelves, hanging, on tables, etc that’s annoying to dust. The floor is easy to deal with comparatively.
Keeping the floor dusted removes overall dust everywhere
I think the point being made is, dust doesn’t stay in one place. Dust on hardwood floor or carpet gets kicked up when you walk on it, leading it to eventually land on tables/shelves etc.
I’ve found that regularly wiping the floors helps quite a bit. You don’t have to be super thorough, just reduce the amount of dust in the room.
Not sure, if vacuuming would work similarly well, since it kicks dust into the air, which can settle on surfaces again…
The floors are the least of my worries because I spray mop it, it’s the dust on shelves, plants, irregular shaped stuff that’s annoying and much more time consuming to dust
It’s not the particular surface that people are concerned about, but more frequent cleaning of that surface might reduce overall dust settling everywhere
I’m saying spray-mop the floor once a week and you’ll take most of the dust out of that room before it settles on harder-to-clean surfaces, which reduces how often you need to clean shelves, plants etc…
Most dust in a typical household is from shed skin cells, from either humans or pets. And I do imagine that most shed skin cells just fall onto the floor at first and can be collected there.
Hell yea! Gotta go big to get a real effect. Put the filters in rooms that are 1/2 or less the rates size .
I have Honeywell filters in each bedroom . So much less dust. the pre filters catch most of the dust and they can be cleaned and reused.
what would be a good one that is not too expensive?
a box fan and a matching-size furnace filter.
My understanding is that the types that are ozone generators don’t remove particles from the air, they charge the particles so that they stick to surfaces and aren’t floating in the air
Air purifier? That’s a less than ideal term since it gets applied to stuff like ionizers that are of dubious efficacy.
But a straight up filter, hell yeah they work. Just check the filter on your furnace/heater sometime. Same with any AC unit.
If you have something that has a filter, it will reduce dust, period. Without a filter, you aren’t going to reduce dust worth a damn, if at all.
But you also need to make sure it’s turning the air over often enough. I haven’t looked the info up in ages, but if you want a decent reduction in particulates, the device has to move air fairly significantly it it isn’t going to about to much.
Like, my house is right around a hundred years old. Four humans, and various animals over the years. Shit is dusty what with the dead skin, particles from things like carpet, pollen, dander, etc. Enough stuff gets produced that even with the regular furnace/ac filter, and a handful of one-room filters spread throughout the house (which tends to be better than one big one imo) we still get dust buildup on everything. But if we don’t run the filters, you can both visibly and nasally tell the difference.
A newer house isn’t going to have as much, so you can likely get away with less air turnover, short term, and need to dust less. But you’ll never be totally dust free just because you can’t move enough air to prevent at least a little settling.
Reminds me I need to reset mine again. Big mistake to buy a “smart” air filter. I thought I was getting remote monitoring of air quality data, but I have something that makes too many assumptions about your home network so doesn’t work on mine, support that gave up, and a purifier that needs to be reset every couple weeks
Name and shame
Dust is pretty inescapable. Dust can even be from dead skin off of you. You're always surrounded by particles in the air, some you can see, some you can't see. The air is almost never 100% clean. But that doesn't mean that upkeeping cleanliness and seeking things like humidifiers, filters for A/C-Heater-Furnace is all for naught. They will help and keeping a light schedule as to how much you clean helps too.
I know, dust really sucks and can give you the feeling of 'why bother' when it's just going to come back and collect layers in a matter of time. But, you can at least slow it down.
I think most dust is dead skin and skin mites. Then in some areas there might be most dirt (entrance) and fibers (where you do laundry).
Not really. For us, the noticeable difference is the robovac with wet mopping.
You know how sometimes when you do a bunch of loads of laundry and forget to clean the lint trap you can just peel the lint out like it’s a thick sticker?
You can do that same thing on a large air purifier. It’s pretty gross because it’s all hair and dust.
Winix makes some nice full room air purifiers.
Yes they absolutely do.
I didn’t even know how much until I analyzed data from multiple particulate sensors! But yeah I switched from having my hepa filter off at night to running 24/7. And this is with an extremely good whole house filter.
ymmv I suspect homes with ERVs/HRVs wouldn’t be as affected since they’re introducing outside air regularly. I don’t have one and wish I did.
Anecdotally, yes. I was able to go from dusting my PC every 3-6mo to every year.
The filters are completely fuzzy on the air filters every 6-12 mo. I still vacuum and dust, just way less frequently. I also don’t wear shoes in the house.
I run them 24/7 in my bedroom and office.