While getting a new air purifier we get many questions in our mind, including me, one such question would be do air purifiers cool the room?
We expect that air purifiers will help in providing clean and cool air. But It is not the case.
In this article, I’ll help you understand the importance of an air purifier and why air purifiers don’t cool the room. Additionally, I’ve covered the ways you can ensure your room remains cool while using an air purifier.
Without any further delay, let’s understand the air purifiers.
What is an Air Purifier?
Air purifiers are devices used to clean indoor air by capturing airborne particles including dust particles, pollen, and pet dander.
These devices can also capture smoke including wildfire smoke, cooking smoke, and harmful odors from the air.
The components of an Air purifier include a fan, motor, and filters.
Motor: The motor is used to draw the polluted air and push the clean air into the room.
Fan: The fan helps in drawing the air in and pushing the air out. Filters are the main component that helps in removing the pollutants from the air.
Filters: The most commonly used air purifiers include HEPA filters and activated carbon filters.
HEPA filter is used to remove airborne particles of size down to 0.03 microns with 99.97% efficiency.
The activated carbon filter is used to remove smoke and odors from the air.
Do Air Purifiers Cool the Room?
No, Air purifiers do not cool the room. They used to provide clean air for breathing by removing harmful pollutants and odors.
The air purifiers are just a fan and filters. These devices need to be considered only for cleaning the indoor air which improves the air quality.
However, to make the room cool you need to look for an air conditioner.
Relying on the air purifier for clean and cool air is something that should not be considered.
You will find one exception, air purifiers from Dyson (not all models) can perform dual functions both cleaning and cooling air to some extent.
Primarily cleaning your indoor air and secondarily giving just a cooling effect to you if you are near the unit.
Dyson air purifiers cannot replace completely air conditioners in cooling the room. The airflow rate of the Dyson air purifier is relatively low compared to the airflow rate of air conditioners.
Can an Air Purifier act as a Fan?
Air purifiers typically consist of a fan and filters. Though it contains a fan, it will not perform to the same extent as that of the ceiling fan.
Fan performance can be measured with the CADR (clean air delivery rate).
The air purifier’s CADR would be between 80 and 300 CFM (Cubic feet per minute).
While for the ceiling fans, it would be above 1000 CFM which is much higher than air purifiers.
Generally, in air purifiers, you will find 1-3 filters, but some air purifiers contain 5 filters in them. The airflow rate decreases as the number of filters increases in the air purifier.
If you think that your air purifier can replace the ceiling fan in your room, then you need to rethink this.
The efficiency of air purifiers and fans can be known by looking at their CADR values.
Is an Air Purifier the same as an Air conditioner?
Air purifiers and Air conditioners are two different devices that are designed to perform two different functions.
The purpose of air purifiers is to filter and clean the air in the room to provide clean and healthy air in the room.
The purpose of Air conditioners is to provide cool air in the room and bring room temperature down to make the room cool.
Unlike Air conditioners, Air purifiers do not have any cooling system in them to cool the air.
Sometimes you feel a cool effect when the breeze moves along your sweaty skin. This gives a cool effect (evaporation) on your skin.
You will not experience any cooling effect once you are distant from the air purifier. This is because the CADR is low compared to either ceiling fans or air conditioners.
Does Air Purifier Airflow Direction Matter?
The direction of airflow from the air purifier also plays a role to some extent when considering the cooling of the room.
You will find two types of airflow in an air purifier. Based on how the air purifier pulls the air and exhausts air into the room.
One is upward air flow direction and another is forward airflow direction.
Upward Air Flow Direction:
Mostly, the air purifier uses an upward airflow direction to exhaust the clean air into the room.
These air purifiers pull the air from all sides (back side, front side, sideways), or pull the air from 360 degrees direction.
This kind of air purifier makes the room hotter by drawing the air from all sides and exhausting it in an upward direction.
We can say that these air purifiers are winter-friendly.
Forward air flow direction:
An air purifier designed with the forward airflow direction draws air from the backside and exhaust air from the front side.
Well, these air purifiers are exhausting air on the front side you will find that these are summer-friendly air purifiers.
These air purifiers won’t lower the temperature of the room. Generally, this kind of air purifier is designed as a tower-style.
How to Cool My Room while Using an Air Purifier?
Many people consider forward air flow air purifiers that provide a cooling effect in the room.
To keep your room cool, you need to either get an air conditioner that would be the best fit or you need to follow the tips that help you make your room cool.
Now let’s focus on the tips:
- Close all the windows and doors, if the temperature is hot outside.
- Stay at home and use a ceiling fan (table fan) at high speed.
- Block incoming sunlight with thick dark curtains.
- Use a humidifier to increase the humidity of the room.
Conclusion:
Air purifiers are designed to clean the air by removing airborne particles of size down to 0.03 microns and provide healthy air for breathing.
That’s the reason air purifiers are only used to clean the air.
There are air purifiers from Dyson that provide a cooling effect along with clean air. However, it cannot replace the air conditioners completely.
In this article, I’ve provided tips that can help to cool the room while using an air purifier.
I hope this article helped you in understanding that air purifiers do not cool the room.
