How-to Articles and Guides
Our guides and how-to articles cover a wide range of purification topics. From ozone generator safety to giving advice on the best purifier for people who love to cook. Most guides will offer a selection of products that we believe will help alleviate the problem you’re trying to solve. However, the main goal here is to educate.
In order to continue sharing educational materials we do need to monetize this site to pay for hosting, test products, and testing equipment. So, to be completely transparent we do utilize affiliate links throughout the site. If you click on a link we may earn a commission from the seller. The good news is that it costs you nothing, and allows us to keep doing what we do.
Unlike our reviews, which focus on one item at a time, our guides always look at multiple items. We do this to offer different perspectives and solutions for different audiences. For example in a guide about finding a general purpose we might include a recommendation for small spaces, one for large spaces, and one with all the bells and whistles.
Problem Solving Guides
These guides focus on solving a specific problem. For example… finding the best air purifier for pet owners with allergies. Or providing air purifier options for weed smokers.
We put a lot of time and effort into these guides and truly hope that you’ll walk away with some information on what causes the problem, low to no cost solutions to help improve the situation, and obviously a product or two to make life easier.
#1 Purifiers for Cigar Aficionados
The best purifier for smoke is a pretty open ended topic. In this guide we look into what makes a purifier ideal for cigar lovers. Spoiler alert you need a lot of power and activated carbon. The amount of smoke created by one cigar is pretty substantial.
#2 A Cigarette Smokers Guide to Air Purifiers
In this guide we compare and contrast the top air purifiers for smokers. While this seems to be a common topic for appliance review sites and purifier manufacturers; few seem to do much more than slap the word “smoke” somewhere in thier review (or packaging).
To buck the trend we look into the unique problems caused by smoking cigarettes indoors, and use that information to create a list of recommendations.
#3 Best Purifiers for Asthmatics Guide
Do purifiers help with asthma? In this guide we do our best to separate ourselves from the medical advice and empty promises you’ll find elsewhere online. We’re not MD’s or experts on asthma… but we do have pretty hardcore allergies. And, what we’ve learned is that allergy season hits asthmatics especially hard. And as allergy sufferers ourselves we can say without a doubt – purifiers can help.
Will they cure you? No not at all. But filtering allergens from the air you breathe is a huge help.
#4 Best Humidifiers with Filters
If you’re on the lookout for a great humidifier – purifier combo we have you covered. In this guide we take a look at the top machines that incorporate both humidification and filtration into one tidy package.
#5 Air Purifiers for Fighting Dust
This is actually one of the problems that pops up most frequently in google searches. Everyone seems to want to know “what is the best air purifier for removing dust from the air .”
Whether they hate dusting… or just dislike it when they see all of that dust floating around when the sun hits it in the morning – we don’t know. But, when combined with a few other products and a little preventive behavior; a purifier is by far the best tool for removing dust from the air.
Will it eliminate swiffering indefinitely? Probably not.
#6 The Best Purifiers for Odor
Here’s one of our favorite, but incredibly basic topics. Fighting odor – it is a all about removing the source and capturing any leftovers. While even the best air purifier for odor will not help if you live next to a landfill; a good air purifier will help if you’re cooking fish for dinner this evening.
#7 Chemicals and Air Purifiers
Do air purifiers remove harmful and smelly chemicals from the air you breathe? Yes and no. There are some purifiers that can capture things like volatile organic compounds… but they’re not going to completely remove them before you inhale them without some serious ventilation.
For example; imagine that you’re spray painting a coffee table in your living room. Crazy on many levels, but just think of all of the VOCs you’d be introducing into that room.
Now imagine that you have an awesome plugin air purifier in the corner of that room. No matter how good that purifier is, it will not intercept the chemical compounds before you inhale them. It’s just not feasible. In fact if you’ve ever seen a professional painter at work you’ve certainly seen them wearing a respirator.
A respirator will create a barrier between you and the chemicals. A purifier (or any other filter) will just catch the additional chemical compounds. Both at the time they’re introduced and while any off gassing occurs.
Bottom line… a purifier for chemicals will help. But, don’t do anything stupid and assume it will keep you from inhaling paint fumes.
#8 Best Dehumidifier for Basements
In this guide we weigh in on what exactly makes the best dehumidifier for basement use… the “best.”
While an air purifier will definitely clean up the air in your home, there are some things you can do to make a purifiers life easier. This is especially true in a basement with moisture issues.
As you probably know there are two big problems associated with moisture in your basement. First is it’s a breeding ground for various kinds of mold. Second… nothing smells worse than a musty basement. No while a purifier will capture mold and adsorb its odor. Nothing works better than stopping the problem before it starts.
Thats where dehumidifiers come into play. They help make your basement less habitable for fungi and more inviting for fun guys. We also recommend testing your indoor air quality before and after you add a purifier to your basement.
#9 Best Purifier for Mold
As we mentioned above a dehumidifier might be the best appliance for mold prevention and management. But, mold is everywhere… both indoors and outside. So what makes a purifier good at collecting mold spores?
This guide will help you sort that out, and ensure that the purifier you buy doesn’t become a breeding ground for more mold than you had in the first place.
Product Line Guides
These guides are directly connected to our product reviews. To create these guides we summarize a collection of products from a single company. To be honest we mainly started building these guides to keep all of the various products organized. The other benefit that brings is it helps you the reader see differences small and large in products that sometimes appear to be identical.
For example RabbitAir, an awesome company, makes purifiers with a handful of names. These names initially sound like a specific product. However they’re really a designation given to a group of purifiers in their product line. Beyond that they assign numbers and letters like 550-A to describe slight variations in options and performance. And, this is a common practice throughout the industry, not just with one or two manufacturers.
- Alen Air Purifier Lineup
- Austin Air’s Powerhouse Purifiers
- Blue Air and Blue Pure Purifiers
- GermGuardian Budget Purifier Product Line
- Hunter Air Purifier Guide
- IQAir Top Shelf Purifier Line
- Levoit Air Purifier Products
- Oransi Purifier Options
- Winix Air Plasmawave Product Line Guide
- Winix Air Purifier Product Guide
Purifiers by Type
In this series of guides we look into the various types of purifiers you’ll encounter during your search for the perfect purifier. For example we discuss what makes a plugin purifier unique. Or what makes a whole house purifier work i such a large space. We even wrote a guide for our least favorite purifier category… filterless purifiers. Basically, this group of guides is here to orient you with terms you’ll hear and help you make decisions to solve your individual purification problems.
But, we also wanted to include a few “type” guides for unconventional air purification. For instance finding the best HEPA vacuum. Which is actually a really crucial aspect of removing dust from your home and helping your purifier(s) work better and last longer.
Purifier Price Points
A lot of shoppers love to find a deal. And while we tend to evaluate value throughout our site over price… we understand that a lot of shoppers want to start with a budget and work from there. So here are a few guides that we hope will help you find that general purpose purifier for a predetermined price.
$ – Ultra Affordable Purifiers that Work
Finding the best cheap air purifier is actually pretty difficult. Below one hundred dollars the purifier industry is riddled with sketchy claims, marketing lingo, and incredibly lofty promises. Drop below fifty bucks (US) and things get downright perilous. So we put a couple of guides together to give you a fighting chance. Even when the prices drop below fifty dollars.
$$ – $$$ Mid Range Air Purifiers
This is the category where you’ll really start to see some incredible machines. Purifiers priced below two hundred dollars can really help change the air quality in a mid size room or office.
Bump your budget up to five hundred dollars and you really get some outstanding purifiers that are suited for almost any challenge.
Purifiers by Room Size
Room capacity is very important when it comes to purchasing a purifier. To give you a few suggestions based solely upon room dimensions alone we assembled the following guides…