Air Purifiers and Mold

 Why is Mold a Problem?

When left unchecked, indoor mold can spread across your household surfaces in a hurry. Locating and removing it can be a challenging task, but you can’t just ignore it, hoping it will go away. If not dealt with promptly, it can cause serious problems.

A fungus relying on moisture and humidity to grow, mold is usually a sign of an significant underlying problem. Often caused by leaky pipes, poor ventilation, or just high atmospheric humidity, mold can worsen problems for homeowners by causing decay as it feasts on organic materials such as wood and fabric.

Mold reproduces as it spreads, releasing spores into the surrounding air. As these spores are inhaled by the inhabitants of the home, they can cause major health problems. Long-term exposure to mold spores can stir up allergic reactions and asthma attacks, but some varieties of mold are toxic to humans and can lead to more serious health problems.

Attacking an indoor mold problem isn’t just necessary for keeping your family healthy, it also may save you money. If allowed to spread unrestrained, a mold problem can easily get out of hand, requiring professional removal and remediation, which can be quite pricey.

How Mold Grows
In order to grow, mold needs two things – moisture and food. Mold can grow on any number of organic materials, including wood, fabric, organic fibers, even the oil that your skin leaves on surfaces when you touch them.  Removing mold’s food sources is impossible, so keeping your home’s humidity levels in check is one of the few proactive things you can do to protect it. An indoor humidity level above 60 percent creates the right conditions for mold to thrive. Although, under some conditions, mold can grow in even lower humidity.

Mold spreads by releasing minute seed-like particles, called spores, into the air. These particles float around until they land on the surfaces of your home. If there is ample food and moisture in the location the spores land, they will start to grow and spread, causing damage and releasing more spores into the air.

Often, mold spores are released by existing patches of mold in your home. However, they often float into your home from outside. If you have damp leafy areas nearby, this can be a potential source of mold spores in search of a new home.

How an Air Purifier Removes Mold
An air purifier cannot remove existing mold from your home’s surfaces. However, an air purifier with a true HEPA filter can play a crucial part in removing mold spores from your home’s air, thereby keeping mold in check.

An air filter, when used properly, circulates the air in a room multiple times each hour, drawing it in and releasing. While the air passes freely through the air purifier’s filter, mold spores and other particulates become trapped. All that is released back into the room is pure, clean air. No matter where those floating mold spores come from, an air purifier can trap them before they have a chance to settle and take up residence in your home.

Why to Choose Austin Air
Austin Air’s HealthMate + Plus line of air purifiers draws in air from a room in all directions. This creates constant circulation, drawing in mold spores and other pollutants that are floating in every corner of the room.

As the air circulates through your Austin Air HealthMate + Plus air purifier, it passes through an advanced four-stage filtration system, which includes two separate particle filters, an activated carbon filter, and a medical grade true HEPA filter. Mold spores can’t make it past the system’s HEPA filtration, which is designed to effectively capture 99.97 percent of particles as tiny as 0.3 microns in size.

Any of Austin Air’s HealthMate + Plus models make an important addition to your arsenal against indoor mold. The HealthMate + Plus model line comes in standard HM450, which efficiently and effectively cleans up to 1500 square feet of space, and a junior HM250 for smaller spaces, effective for up to 700 square feet.