how long to run air purifier

How Long You Should Ideally Run Your Air Purifier for Each Day

If you’re new to using an air purifier, you may have no idea how long you need to run it to get the maximum results and how quickly it’ll work after you plug it in.

After all, you want it to clean your air to make it easier for you to breathe, sleep, and to give you greater peace of mind when it comes to your family.

How Long to Run Air Purifier

Ideally, you’ll run your air purifier for a minimum of 12 hours every day. But, for the best results, we recommend running it for a full 24-hours because airborne particles and dust will circulate non-stop throughout the day and night. Having your air purifier running around the clock will help it keep up with the demand, and it’ll be more effective for cleaning your indoor air.

If you’re not sure when to use an air purifier, how long you should run it, how long it takes to clean a room, what happens when you switch it off, and more, this is for you. We’re going to take a deep dive into all of these questions for you below.

When to Use an Air Purifier

If you don’t want to run your air purifier all of the time, you can switch it off when you’re not home and turn it on again when you come through the door.

If you keep it running at night, it can work to improve your air quality to help you sleep better.

Another way to conserve a little energy at night is to turn your fan to a lower setting at night and turn it on higher during the day if you want it on all of the time.

This will give your air purifier a quieter operation and help to conserve energy at the same time.

You want to use the air purifier in the spaces you spend the most time in your home, including in your bedroom, home office, living room, kitchen, or anywhere your family tends to converge.

If you’re not using your air purifier to reduce your allergy symptoms, you could keep your windows open during the day or night to help vent out smoke or any other unwanted particles to help freshen up the air. Regular vacuuming and dusting could also help you get your allergies at the source.

How Long You Should Run Your Air Purifier

Run the air purifier for at least 12 hours a day, but we recommend keeping it on constantly, so it’s running 24 hours a day to stop the constant circulation of airborne dust and other particles.

When you have consistently clean air, you can breathe more comfortably without any allergy symptoms like sinus pressure or coughs.

To optimize how well your unit works, set it to run at full speed for a few hours before switching it back to a lower speed to help maintain the room’s air quality to the new standard.

Additionally, remember to run the air purifier daily as often as you can to ensure that your indoor air is always fresh and clean each time you come home.

How Long It Takes an Air Purifier to Clean a Room’s Air

It takes anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours to clean the air in one room, but you should start to notice a difference in the air quality in 20 minutes after you switch it on.

In order for this machine to be 100% effective, you’ll have to factor in the model type, extraction rate, and room size.

The extraction rate is how much air the machine can clean every hour. For example, a unit with a HEPA filtration system running at four air charges an hour would take roughly half the time to clean the air compared to a machine that was running at two air changes every hour. Your local weather and location also play a big role in how quickly it works.

What Happens When You Switch the Unit off?

Your indoor air is constantly changing, and indoor pollutants get released every time you do something like open packages, switch your stove on, use scented products, or fold clothes. If you have pets, you have to factor in constant dander and hair production.

Outdoor pollutants are another thing you have to take into consideration because they enter the home each time you open a door, open a window, walk-in or out, or allow someone else inside.

Since homes aren’t perfectly sealed, a host of outdoor pollutants can seep into your home around the clock.

Air purifiers work because they force your indoor air through filters to screen out any pollutants, and even the best air purifiers will have to run for a few hours to clean all of the air inside one room.

Every time you turn your purifier off, the pollutants start to build up again and make it more challenging for the unit to work properly. Leaving it running all of the time can help it trap contaminants as they get released indoors.

Why You Should Leave the Air Purifier on When You Sleep

It’s not possible for you to be doing anything to release pollutants as you sleep, is it? Isn’t this a good time to turn your air purifier off? The answer is no.

Generally speaking, if you only buy a single air purifier for your home, it should ideally go into the bedroom.

We spend roughly a third of our life in bed sleeping, and sleep quality is essential to your overall health, so having clean air can help you sleep much better.

Not only with a range of indoor pollutants like pet dander, mold, and dust accumulated if you turn the air purifier off, you also have to remember that pollutants are constantly seeping into your home.

All of these pollutants can get into your bedroom air without the purifier running and cause aggravation with allergy and asthma symptoms.

How Much It Costs to Run an Air Purifier All Day

Even though you would benefit from running your air purifier 24 hours a day, you could still worry about the cost.

The first thing you have to understand is that the traditional energy company will charge you based on the number of kilowatt-hours you use every month.

If you had a device that used 100 watts per hour, you would need to run it for 10 hours straight to increase your bill by one kilowatt unit.

The average air purifier uses 50 watts of electricity every hour, so you would need to run it for 20 hours to make your bill go up by one kilowatt-hour.

The average cost for a single kilowatt-hour is around $0.12 in the United States, so this equals out to around $0.14 a day to run it.

You get this number by multiplying the average kilowatt per hour at $0.05 by the number of hours per day, so 24.

Take this amount and multiply it by $0.12 to get $0.14 per day, and this means that you can run your air purifier every day for 24 hours a day and only spend around $50.00 a year. This is lower than several household appliances.

Bottom Line

Ideally, you’ll run your air purifier for 24 hours a day, every day, to maximize how efficient it is.

You can run it for 12 hours at a minimum if you don’t like the thought of running it when you’re not home.

Either way, it’ll help clean your home’s indoor air to make it healthier for you to breathe.

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