If you live in a newer house in Hodgenville, it was in all likelihood built with energy efficiency as a priority. This means greater amounts of insulation and windows and doors with improved seals. While these enhancements are excellent for keeping your heating and cooling bills under control, they’re not so excellent for your indoor air quality.
Your heating and cooling system needs to operate with a filter. But if you have a flat filter, you won’t be getting enough filtration. This model only delivers the bare minimum of protection by keeping dust out of your home comfort system.
While you can get a pleated filter or one with a better MERV rating, it still might not be adequate filtration, even more so if someone in your residence has allergies or other respiratory troubles.
That’s where a whole-house air purifier can be a great solution. These systems are attached within ductwork to provide strong filtration around your residence. Depending on the model you select, you’ll be able to get rid of allergens, odors and even some viruses under certain airflow conditions.
Here are our favorite systems from Lennox, an industry leader in air purification.
Best Air Purifiers from Lennox
1. HEPA Air Purifiers
A HEPA air purifier, like the Healthy Climate® High-Efficiency Particulate Air Filtration System, gives premium filtration. These filters were first made to protect scientists as they created the atomic bomb. Today, they’re essential in hospitals and other medical buildings.
The Healthy Climate HEPA Filtration System has a three-step filtration process. A prefilter draws bigger irritants before the HEPA filter catches remaining tiny pollutants. Then, a charcoal filter takes care of odors and chemical vapors.
The PureAir™ S Air Purification System connects to all HVAC brands and easily links to your smart home. It fights the three leading kinds of indoor air contaminants:
- Airborne particles
- Chemical odors and vapors
- Germs and bacteria, under certain airflow conditions
This air purifier can remove 99.9%* of pollutants, including mold spores, pollen, dust and pet dander. It’s also potent at reducing or eliminating 90%1 of flu and cold viruses under certain airflow conditions. And, based on laboratory and field studies, it reduces and eradicates approximately 50% of household odors and chemical vapors within 24 hours.
The PureAir S is equipped with sensing features that make it simple to maintain. When paired with an iComfort® S30 smart thermostat, you’ll receive an alert to change the filter and UVA light.2 This home air purifier must be installed with communicating Lennox systems and the iComfort S30.
2. Media Air Cleaners
Lennox Healthy Climate® Media Air Cleaners come in in a variety of MERV ratings to work with your needs. This rating measures how good filters are at capturing contaminants. The better the number, the better the filtration.
The Healthy Climate Carbon Clean 16® Media Air Cleaner is recommended for households with allergy suffers and pets. This is a HEPA filter air purifier, since it has a MERV 16 rating for hospital-level filtration. And it gets rid of more than 95%3 of aggravating particles from your house’s air.
The Healthy Climate 13 Media Air Cleaner is suggested for households who want improved protection from viruses and bacteria. This filter removes 99% of larger particles including dust, pollen and lint. And up to 54% of miniscule particles down to 0.3 microns.4
The Healthy Climate 11 Media Air Cleaner is a an excellent air purifier for allergies and in homes with pets. It catches more than 87% of bigger particles down to 3 microns and more than 28% of miniscule ones down to 0.3 microns.4 It’s able to provide this strong filtration without increasing the bill for turning on your heating and cooling system.
These three media air cleaners can be used with any brand of HVAC system. However, it’s critical to be aware that some of the more substantial ones, including MERV 16 and 13, may restrict your system’s airflow. This can increase your heating and cooling bills.
3. UV Air Purifiers
The sun’s UV rays are the reason why you get a painful sunburn. But this type of light has a beneficial application when installed within your ductwork. It’s also strong enough to eliminate germs, mold and fungi under certain airflow conditions.
In actuality, the Healthy Climate UV Germicidal Light can lower the concentration of airborne microorganisms by 50% in as quickly as 45 minutes.5 This light damages cell structure, which stops these microorganisms from growing and moving around your residence.
And this UV air purifier can also help keep your home comfort system clean and working like it should. It takes care of germs, mold and fungi lurking in ductwork and your system itself. This UV light air purifier achieves all this work without making lung-inflaming ozone.6
Breathe Healthier Air with the Support of Our Air Purification Professionals
Your loved ones’ comfort and health is our top priority at Phelps Heating & Cooling, Inc.. We know there are a lot of options out there. That’s why we make it easy to collaborate with our indoor air quality specialists. We specialize in developing solutions tailored to your needs and budget, and we’d love to find out more about your home and your air quality problems. Reach us at 270-358-3167 now to start the process.
1Based on laboratory and field studies.
2PureAir™ S requires the iComfort® S30 and a communicating indoor unit.
3Leading consumer magazine, January 2012. Based on the published CADR, which is the standardized measurement system to determine the cubic feet of clean air produced per minute. Particles captured range in size down to 0.3 micron. One micron = 1/25,000 of an inch in diameter.
4Based on lab tests conducted on filters with conditions included in ASHRAE standard 52.2 for E1 and E3 size ranges.
5Based on constant circulation of air in the home, 3,000-square-foot home with a 5-ton air handler.
6U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Ozone Generators that are Sold as Air Cleaners: An Assessment of Effective and Health Consequences,” August 2006.
