So briefly put, do air purifiers help with dust mites? The straightforward answer is yes.
Dust mites, according to CDC, are one of the significant causes of asthma, and dust mites allergies.
They can trigger or exacerbate your symptoms. And as you know, the earth is made up of dust everywhere.
About 60% of household dust comes outdoors, containing pollen, dirt, sand, and other contaminants. It includes tiny bits of skin cell hovering around, along with lots of dust mites and their feces.
So interacting with these dust mites is unavoidable. More so, dealing with these organisms can be really frustrating.
And so you’d need more than just manual cleaning to significantly reduce their population in your home.
A tool you might need to eradicate dust mites is an air purifier.
This article reveals how an air purifier tackles dust mites problems and some valuable prevention tips.
What causes dust mites?
The primary cause of dust mites in the home is high humidity. When the indoor humidity levels get above 50%, it creates a perfect humid condition that encourages the breeding of dust mites.
Remember that such high humidity levels also facilitate the growth of mold and mildew.
The activities of these biological organisms lead to dust formation indoors. And consequently, accumulating dust mites.
Furthermore, the average human sheds about a million skin cells daily. Most of these inevitably come off when you toss and turn while sleeping.
So mattresses, pillows, beddings, and furniture are full of those human skin cells, making an ideal dust mite home.
Dust mites feed off these dead skin cells and sweat, where they thrive and increase their colonies.
Also, dust mites accompany the impure air that comes into your home from the outdoors….This’s inevitable.
This, plus the factors mentioned above, accelerates the increase of dust mites in your house.
Can Air Purifier remove dust mites?
Yes, it can. A high-efficiency air purifier is an essential first line of defense against dust mites.
In addition, an air purifier is the best way to sanitize your air by removing pollutants and allergens, not just dust mites.
An air purifier is designed to remove many airborne contaminants effectively.
A good air purifier will capture dust mites and the smaller dust mites’ allergen, including their droppings.
However, there’s a limitation to the use of air purifiers for dust mites. And that’s; air purifiers can only deal with dust mites if they and their allergens are airborne.
This means that to get the most out of an air purifier, especially for dust mites, you’d need to disturb surfaces in your home.
And this includes dusting, making your bed, and opening and flapping your curtains. This aims to get the dust mites and their feces airborne, so an air purifier can quickly and easily capture them.
In addition, an air purifier can be used as a preventive measure against any encroaching dust, dust mites’ allergens, dead skin flakes, and pet dander.
And slow down the build-up of dust.
Therefore, minimizing the speed at which dust mites multiply in your home.
How do air purifiers help with dust mites?
Dust mites are one of the major causes of allergies. However, people with allergies to dust mites aren’t allergic to the organism themselves.
But they are actually allergic to the enzymes in their feces. So you need an air purifier to eliminate dust mites and their feces before they settle into your furniture, curtains, mattresses, pillows, and bedding.
Air purifiers are designed with filtration technologies that systematically eliminate air pollutants of various sizes.
The recommended air purifier for dust mites is one with a True HEPA filter.
HEPA filters are designed to eliminate airborne particles as small as 0.3 microns and lower, including airborne dust mites, dust mites droppings, and their allergens.
In addition, most air purifiers feature a Pre-filter that traps large particles of dirt, reducing the burdens on the HEPA filter.
Additionally, a good air purifier for dust mites should have an activated carbon filter for odors such as from dust mites and their poops, molds, and pet dander.
As well as chemical fumes and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs).
With this filter system, air purifiers effectively remove dust mites and eliminate their allergens. This is a massive relief if dust mites trigger your asthma or you suffer from dust mite allergies.
Nevertheless, using an air purifier helps, but it isn’t enough to completely eradicate dust mites. It would be best to have a mechanism to control indoor moisture levels.
This is where a dehumidifier comes in handy.
Is a dehumidifier or air purifier better for dust mites?
Eliminating dust mites can take a lot of work to achieve. But the good news is that they have a weakness.
And that’s humidity or the lack of it. Dust mites need at least 50% humidity for their survival. As a result, they suck water from the air.
When the humidity drops significantly (below 50%), they die, while some hibernate.
The ones that hibernate gather at a spot to reduce the exposure of their bodies to air so that they won’t lose water.
So using a dehumidifier can help reduce dust mites in your home by lowering your humidity indoors.
And ensuring it stays within the 30 to 50% threshold. However, a dehumidifier isn’t enough to tackle dust mites.
Yes, a humidifier can kill dust mites in the air. But what’s next? What happens to the dead dust mites, droppings, and allergens before they drop all over?
Fortunately, an air purifier can handle those.
Likewise, using an air purifier alone for dust mites and their waste is inadequate. You’d need to maintain your moisture at the recommended level to kill dust mites.
So a combination of a dehumidifier and an air purifier can be an excellent way to prevent dust mites in your home.
How to prevent dust mites in your home?
Use air purifiers to prevent and eliminate dust mites. As mentioned, air purifiers rid the air of dust mites, dust mites’ waste, skin flakes, and pet dander, especially when airborne.
An air purifier is an excellent precaution against dust mites infestation and build-up.
Also, you need to keep your house as clean as possible. And this involves a regular and thorough cleaning of your household.
A HEPA vacuum cleaner would help remove dust mites from your floors and carpets.
In addition, you can sprinkle tannic acid dust or diatomaceous earth to dehydrate the dust mites and kill them.
Also, it would be best to wash your bedding frequently with detergent. Use a steam cleaner for your furniture, mattresses, and curtains. It helps to eliminate dust mites and allergens.
Furthermore, use hypoallergenic encasing for your mattress, pillows, and bed covers.
That said, you need to maintain a low humidity level indoors. To reduce dust mites levels in your home, strife to maintain a 30 to 50% humidity threshold.
And investing in a dehumidifier is the best way to achieve your humidity target. But running a dehumidifier unmonitored over a long time can absorb too much moisture, leading to under-humidification.
This is risky as dry air can irritate nasal passages.
Hence, you need a hygrometer to track and monitor your moisture levels indoors at any particular time.
Also, when you wake up in the morning, open your windows to allow the odors from sweat and skin cells to escape.
Fortunately, this also lets in sunlight. Sun rays do well in killing dust mites, though they don’t remove the feces and other allergens they leave behind.
Nonetheless, the more of them the sun kills, the more you slow down the growth of their colonies.
Final Words
If you’re asthmatic or suffer from dust mites allergies, one of the best ways of getting rid of dust mites is by using a HEPA air purifier.
Air purifiers with True HEPA filters help with dust mites by filtering them and absorbing their waste.
A dehumidifier is also an excellent tool for reducing dust mites levels. Dehumidifiers maintain an optimal low indoor humidity that kills or hibernates dust mites.
So using an air purifier and a dehumidifier is a great way to eliminate dust mites effectively.