Can I Use My Vacuum Without A Filter

No i wants to vacuum their house without coming away feeling satisfied that they've created a clean, healthy environment. We want to know nosotros've successfully ridded the air and carpets of all the dust, pollen, leaner, and other particulates that plague most homes.

Enter the loftier-efficiency particulate air filter, better known as a HEPA filter.

Like other government standards, HEPA has become firmly entrenched in our lexicon, used to betoken a higher standard of decontamination. Attached to a vacuum cleaner, HEPA filters capture smaller particulates that might otherwise not be trapped by your vacuum, providing added relief for allergy sufferers and cleaner air for all.

Simply costing several times the corporeality of conventional filters, are HEPA filters worth the added expense?

Originally designed in the 1940s to preclude the spread of airborne radioactive contaminants, the HEPA filter soon made its fashion into commercial—and eventually residential—applications. A true HEPA filter, as defined by the U.S. Department of Free energy, removes at least 99.97 per centum of airborne particles that are 0.three micrometers in diameter.

How small is that? The average man hair is about 100 micrometers in diameter. That'southward roughly 300 times the size of what a HEPA filter will trap.

"For nigh allergens, the particles are bigger than 0.3 micrometers," explains Jeffrey May, air quality consultant and author of My Firm is Killing Me. "You lot don't need a HEPA filter to stop dust mite, and pollen particles, every bit they are relatively huge. Whatsoever good vacuum cleaner should end cat hair and dander."

But May says that HEPA filters help contribute to a healthy home environment, even for those without allergies or asthma. A HEPA filter traps most bacteria, pathogens, microbial spores, tracked-in soil particles, combustion soot particles, some construction dust, and some virus particles (that are stuck on larger particles).

"Although the level of filtration is a lot more than than most of us demand, I recollect it makes people experience good. And more recently, epidemiological studies are showing that pocket-sized particles of less than a micron may be causing hypertension."

The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA) has a certification program with guidelines for vacuum cleaners, but the guidelines don't specifically require HEPA filters.

"Nosotros effort to create an environment where the manufacturer can exist innovative, as long equally the product still passes the strict standards adopted past AAFA," says Alicia Elkin, make manager for AAFA's Certification Plan.

AAFA currently certifies 33 vacuum cleaners—all from the Dyson, Kenmore and Samsung labels—plus the very expensive Rainbow Cleaning System, which uses a h2o filtration process.

But New York-based allergist Dr. Clifford Bassett suggests allergy sufferers should not look exclusively to vacuum cleaners with HEPA filters to provide a complete solution for their allergy or asthma issues.

"Things like this work, merely a HEPA filter should exist part of a comprehensive, overall program," Dr. Bassett adds. "You desire an indoor allergy action programme."

If a HEPA filter is what you want, the Healthy House Institute says the most important features in a vacuum cleaner are the HEPA filter itself and how information technology is held in place:

"The filter itself should be made of a pleated, semi-rigid material held in a frame. The frame must be held tightly in place past an closed gasket. The gasket prevents allergy-laden air from bypassing the filter. Some vacuum cleaners take flimsy, pleated paper filters that look similar the material in legitimate HEPA filters; other vacuums have efficient filters in a rigid frame only the filter frame is not held tightly in place, then allergens pass effectually the filter instead of through it, and escape from the vacuum cleaner. A foam filter is not a HEPA filter."

When buying vacuum cleaner bags, avoid products advertised as "HEPA-style" or "HEPA-like," where filtration standards are probably not as rigorous. An "anti-allergen" label is non the same as HEPA.

Jeffrey May says how yous vacuum can exist but as important every bit the product yous use. Carelessly attacking carpets tin effect in more grit being sent into the air than is collected past the vacuum cleaner.

"If y'all're going to spend the money to buy a HEPA vacuum, you need to vacuum slowly and methodically," suggests May. "Otherwise you're wasting your coin."

"Any good vacuum cleaner should stop cat pilus and dander."

So, if y'all keep a tidy house to brainstorm with, a HEPA filter on your vacuum probably won't make much of a difference equally to whether you accept a runny olfactory organ during pollen season. It's not going to collect pet hair and dander improve than a regular vacuum, nor will it remove odors.

Just although a HEPA filter is not a magic bullet past itself, conscientious vacuuming with a HEPA filter volition help grab some of the smaller environmental contaminants we live with. For a cleaner home, they're worth the added expense. And if you accept acute allergies, asthma, COPD or other respiratory conditions, HEPA filters are an important component of a healthier domicile.