Indoor air quality & health
We spend around 90% of our time indoors — and the air in a typical home can hold more fine particles than the air outside. Here's what's in it, and what actually helps.
What's actually in your home's air
Indoor air is a mix of what drifts in from outside and what we create indoors. Cooking releases fine particles and odours; carpets, bedding and pets shed dust and dander; furnishings and cleaning products give off VOCs; and traffic particles seep in through windows and doors. Because homes are sealed for warmth, this mixture builds up rather than blowing away.
Why fine particles matter most
The particles that matter for health are the smallest — PM2.5, under 2.5 microns across. They're small enough to travel deep into the lungs, and the World Health Organization recommends keeping annual exposure below 5 µg/m³. You can't see or smell PM2.5, which is exactly why it's easy to ignore.
What genuinely helps at home
Two things move the needle: ventilation (letting stale air out) and filtration (catching what's left). A true MERV-13 filter captures about 93% of airborne particles, including most PM2.5 — the same grade recommended for hospital and pandemic-era HVAC. The catch is that filtration only works while the purifier is running, which is why quiet, low-cost-to-run units matter: they stay on.
If one trigger dominates your home — heavy cooking smoke or strong odours — a carbon model adds an activated-carbon stage for gases and smells on top of particle filtration.
Common questions
Is indoor air really worse than outdoor air?
Often, yes. Homes trap the particles we generate indoors — from cooking, dust, pets and furnishings — alongside pollution that drifts in from outside. With less airflow to clear it, indoor concentrations can exceed outdoor levels, especially in sealed, well-insulated rooms.
Does an air purifier improve health?
An air purifier reduces the airborne particles you breathe indoors, which is the mechanism behind cleaner-air benefits. It isn't a medical device and can't replace ventilation or fix every source, but a MERV-13 purifier running continuously measurably lowers the fine-particle load in a room.