Ok, so you’re thinking of getting an air purifier. You are confident that an air purifier will work and help the air quality in your home but ne question keeps nagging at you Do air purifiers use a lot of energy?
What about cost though? Not the cost of the unit itself but the cost to run it.
Do air purifiers use a lot of energy? Are air purifiers costly to run?
Let’s take a look.
One of the most frequently asked questions when it comes to air purifiers is “Are air purifiers expensive to run?”
There are a few things to consider:
- How many watts of electricity does your air purifier use?
- How many settings or fan speeds does your air purifier have?
- How long do you plan on running the air purifier? A few hours a day? 24/7?
Do air purifiers use a lot of energy?
How many watts of electricity does your air purifier use?
So one of the first things you want to check is the electricity usage of the air purifier you are looking at.
For example, the Coway Airmega Jet is specified at a maximum usage of 50W. Which means if you are running it at max settings for a full hour it will have used 50W of energy.
As a comparison a standard (non-LED) lightbulb will range from 25W to 100W depending on the brightness, so the Coway Airmega is not using a massive amount of energy.
How much will the air purifier cost to run?
How much is it going to cost me to run it though?
Well lets have a little look below. We’ll base the usage on the max wattage, running for a max of 8 hours per day and using UK electricity prices (you can substitute for your own Country’s rate).
The electricity usage (£) = The unit cost or electricity (£) * The air purifier’s power (kW) * usage time (hours).
So, using the Coway Airmega above we would get:
The electricity usage (£) = 0.21 * 0.05 * 8 = 0.084p per day or £30.66 per year (if used 365 days of the year).
So you could run the air purify for 8 hours a day, 365 days of the year for an energy cost of around £30. Now, obviously this doesn’t take into account other running costs such as replacement filters, this is purely the energy cost.
So, do air purifiers use a lot of energy? I think the answer is very relative to your own circumstances but in comparison with a lot of other household devices the cost of running an air purifier is not particularly high.
Obviously, we’ve based the above on one model, chosen at random. Make sure you check the max power consumption on a unit before making a purchase.