Do air purifiers stop hay fever symptoms is a review of a free sample.
Do air purifiers stop hay fever and reduce symptoms? Could one help make your summer less stressful?
Read on to find out.
As a hay fever sufferer, I’m always looking for things that can help reduce my symptoms in the spring and summer months.
My teen is also afflicted, which means her exam season is usually complicated by the need to carry various nasal sprays, emergency tissues and non-drowsy antihistamines.
Over the last few years, we’ve tried various solutions to try and keep pollen out of the house, but it’s a challenge. During the summer months, our new build home gets very warm, and stays warm – so we like to sleep with the windows open. Except – hello, pollen! What’s a girl to do?
For Flea, sleeping with the windows open means she often wakes with blocked nose, runny nose and sore, red eyes. Once she’s in the throes of an allergic reaction, it takes a lot of medication to help her feel normal.
Over the past month, we’ve been trying the Aqua Perfecta Perfect Air Sense air purifier. Essentially, this is a device that pulls in the air from your room, runs it through a fine filter, and then pushes the air back into the room – minus all the dust and allergens, along with viruses and other pollutants.
Do air purifiers stop hay fever?
So if you’re wondering do air purifiers stop hay fever, the answer is … maybe.
An air purifier will help reduce hay fever symptoms if it’s able to:
- Adequately collect allergens from the air in a space
- Have filters that are sensitive enough to trap pollen
- And can process that air in a timely manner
If you want to know whether any purifier will do this, the important things to look at are the size of room, and the purifier’s CADR (clean air delivery rate) – this suggests how quickly the purifier will suck in those pollen nasties and clear them from your air.
On this score, the Aqua Perfecta does well – it can clear a room of 50 metres square in ten minutes, which means it can probably process the air in a typical bedroom 4-5 times per hour. It has a HEPA filter, which should trap 99% of dust and pollen pulled through the purifier.
Is the Aqua Perfecta Purifier Good?
We were gifted an Aqua Perfecta Air Purifier for the purposes of this review.
We’ve trialled it for several months to track the impact on Flea’s allergies and we’ve found a definite improvement when the filter is running. I often run the purifier in the kitchen while I’m working in the day. Then we’ll move it upstairs at around 7pm, so that Flea’s room has been cleared of most allergens before Flea retires to her room to watch Netflix and pretend I don’t exist.
Generally, we’ve found her morning symptoms are much reduced when the filter is left to run overnight, or even if it just runs until midnight. You can see the display below (excuse the scratches, our unit arrived a little worse for wear).
Do air purifiers stop hay fever? Not entirely. But they can reduce symptoms and make your nights and mornings more comfortable.
The noise level of the appliance is quite low – you can set it to an automatic sensing level, so that the fan kicks in only if (and when) air quality drops, making it perfect for overnight. Flea is used to sleeping with a ceiling fan, and this wasn’t much louder than that sound. If you need to, there are four manual levels and a timer that you can use for different settings and for quicker processing of the air in a room.
So far, we’ve found the Aqua Perfecta reliable, it’s not too big or too heavy, and it’s extremely simple to use. I like that it comes with a three year guarantee. This is an expensive appliance, so you need to be sure it’s going to give you a few years of reliable service.
So on the question of do air purifiers stop hay fever? Not completely. But do they help? In our case, yes.
Pros and Cons of the Aqua Perfecta
Aqua Perfecta says that its purifiers offer top quality filtration at high speeds with almost silent night-time operation. The benefits of this model also include:
- Freestanding appliance that can be moved around the home, or put away when not in use
- 8 filters including UV and HEPA filters for the best possible protection
- A timer function so you can run the appliance when you aren’t in the room
- 4 fan speeds to suit different environments and smart sensors to kick in when needed
- Eco-friendly carbon filters made from waste products (coconut shells)
The biggest downside of the the Aqua Perfecta Sense Air Purifier is that (to be frank) it is on the spendy side.
At £995, this device costs almost £400 more than mid-range purifiers from the likes of Dyson and Philips – and some of those devices offer filtration plus heating and cooling.
The other thing to consider is running costs of your air purifier. My last purifier needed a new HEPA filter costing £75 every 24 months but Aqua Perfecta recommends changing their HEPA filter every six months, with other filters changed annually. For this you’ll pay around £350 per year, which is definitely worth knowing about before you buy.
Do Air Purifiers stop Hay Fever? Tips:
Here are some tips for reducing your hay fever symptoms by using an air purifier:
- Always look for a purifier with appropriate filtration (HEPA) and enough processing power to clear the room you’ll be using the device in.
- To allow the air purifier to clear the air effectively, keep doors and windows shut as much as possible.
- It’s boring, but remembering to dust regularly with a damp cloth and vacuum floors will reduce the amount of pollen your air purifier needs to deal with.
- If you are using an air purifier at night, try taking a shower and removing clothes before going into your bedroom – this will reduce the pollen you introduce into the room
- Try adding a small amount of Vaseline to the edge of your nostrils overnight to trap pollen molecules before they can get into your nasal passages and start causing problems!
