When you want to improve your home’s air quality, adding an air purifier or humidifier can make a significant difference. However, which option is best for your needs depends on the benefits you seek.
Many people mistakenly assume that an air purifier is the same as a humidifier. However, these two appliances perform completely different functions. This guide will clarify misconceptions about the difference between these two devices and when to use them.
What’s the Difference Between an Air Purifier vs. Humidifier?
A humidifier adds moisture to the air. Some devices create steam by heating water to a boiling point and then vibrating the microscopic droplets into the air using ultrasonic technology. Others use a fan and a wick to evaporate water into the air.
Air purifiers remove contaminants from the air. The device pulls air in; then, the filter traps pollutants like dust, mold spores, and pollen. The fan then blows fresh air back into the room. It does not, however, add any moisture into the air, just as the humidifier does not remove anything from the air.
What Benefits Do Air Purifiers and Humidifiers Offer?
Air purifiers are ideal for anyone who wants clean air or who has allergies or asthma. Eliminating contaminants from the air can reduce irritation and symptoms like sneezing, congestion, itchy eyes and throat, and breathing issues.
Humidifiers can also reduce irritation caused by dry air. Adding moisture to the air reduces the effects of stale, dry air, like throat irritation, sneezing, dry eyes, and nosebleeds. It’s also beneficial to your skin, especially during the dry months when indoor humidity often drops below the recommended 30% to 50%.
Using both an air humidifier and an air purifier during cold and flu season can also help you avoid getting sick. Research shows that viruses are less contagious when humidity is between 40% and 60%, and purifiers remove harmful bacteria and viruses from the air before you breathe them in.
Maintain Your Air Quality Devices for Safety
Whether you use a humidifier or an air purifier, you need to maintain it to ensure it’s not doing more harm than good. If you run both in the same space, place them in opposite corners of the room. The extra moisture from the humidifier can contribute to mold growth inside the air purifier, which can worsen air quality.
Choose a humidifier with a filter to ensure the best air quality. A humidifier filter removes contaminants, like dust and metals, from the water before it’s evaporated into the air. It doesn’t remove pollutants from the air.
Air purifiers and humidifiers are not the same, but both help improve air quality. Canopy humidifiers use UV light and specialized paper filters to ensure anything in your water doesn’t end up in your air. Our original humidifier is perfect for spaces up to 500 square feet, like a bedroom or home office, while our Humidifier Plus was made with rooms up to 1,000 square feet in mind.
