In the United States roughly 66% of homes have a pet of some kind, with dogs being the most popular followed by cats. That means there are over 86 million homes with a furry friend of some kind. That's a lot of pet hair flying around in the air. Even if you keep your furry friend well groomed, pet hair is just a part of life when you share your home with a dog or cat. But that hair can cause more problems than just making your favorite outfit look like a modern art installation. Let's take a look at some of the down sides of pet hair in the home, and how the right air purifier can make things better.
Allergy and Asthma Triggers
Pet dander (tiny flakes of skin) often clings to pet hair. People allergic to pets might experience allergy symptoms like sneezing, itchy eyes, or a runny nose if they breathe in pet hair with dander. For people with asthma, pet hair can irritate their airways and trigger asthma attacks. Pet dander can be many sizes, as it tends to crumble and break apart into smaller and smaller chunks making it hard to remove from the air once it reaches ultra tiny sizes.
Clogged Air Passages
Pet air gets around through the air and can clog up anything that has air moving through it. Most refrigerators draw in air at the bottom to pass over the coils at the rear. Pet hair can cover those gaps and make your appliance work a lot harder to keep things cool. Computers and video game systems need clean air to properly cool sensitive electronic components, but pet hair can clog up intakes and cause cooling fans to bog down. It can also clog your home's HVAC air filter and get caught in the return ducts. This makes the filters work less efficiently and can reduce air circulation in your house.
General Mess
Pet hair seems to get everywhere! It can stick to clothes, furniture, bedding, and even food. Ceiling fans tend to collect airborne pet hair and end up looking like Spanish Moss on a windmill. Cobwebs are great at catching pet hair and lending a "recently haunted" look to the house. While not a major health issue, it can be a constant cleaning battle for pet owners.
Why You Need An Air Purifier To Battle Pet Hair
As previously mentioned, pet hair can play havoc with allergies and asthma due to pet dander. And while your home's HVAC filter puts up a good fight catching the strands of pet hair themselves, pet dander goes right through most common household HVAC filters. That's why an air purifier should be part of your home's pet hair defense, but you need the right air purifier. Here's a few things to consider:
Multi-stage filtration - An air purifier that gets clogged up with pet hair won't be able to filter anything. That's why picking an air purifier with multi-stage filtration is better. The Intellipure Ultrafine 468 features an integrated cleanable pre-filter. The pre-filter captures the big junk (like pet hair) so that the next filter can capture the smaller particles. That means each filter can focus on capturing a specific particle size and be more effective.
Odor filtration - Pet hair isn't the only thing lingering in the air, so are pet odors. Picking an air purifier that not only cleans the air of fine particles but also pet odors can help prevent your pets from announcing themselves before entering the room. The Intellipure Compact air purifier has a 6-stage VOC adsorption filter removing harmful gases and odors. Third-party testing of the Intellipure Compact showed a 53%voc/"> VOC reduction* in just 60 minutes.
Whole-home solution - There's nothing wrong with portable air purifiers, but it is also possible to transform your current home HVAC system into a giant air purification unit. The Intellipure SuperV Ultrafine Whole Home Air Purifier is installed right with your HVAC unit and purifies all the air in your home. It delivers greater than MERV 16 filtration efficiency, with the pressure drop of a MERV 8 filter. The results are cleaner air and fewer filter changes.
Superior technology - All Intellipure air purifiers use proprietary Disinfecting Filtration System (DFS) technology to capture and permanently removes 99% of the smallest most dangerous ultrafine particles including airborne mold, bacteria, & viruses.
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Intellipure has led the way in the indoor air quality industry for over 40 years. With our proprietary Disinfecting Filtration System (DFS) technology, we are able to provide air purifiers that effectively capture 99.97% of harmful particles that exist in your indoor environment. From the portable Compact and Ultrafine 468 air purifiers to the SuperV Ultrafine Whole Home air purifier our products bring world-class indoor air quality to every home.
*53% reduction in Toluene over a 60 minute period within a 1,007 cubic foot test chamber.
