Air Purifiers for Offices & Workplaces

Buying Air Purifiers for the Office — Why Every Office and Workplace Needs Air Filtration

Many offices have placed a new emphasis on workplace health and safety in a post-pandemic world. One of the ways to improve an office environment is adding air purifiers. They’re affordable upfront and pay for themselves in air-quality improvements.

But why, exactly, are bulk air filters necessary? What benefits do they provide? And how many will you need based on your space? The experts at Air Health™ are here to answer these questions.

Why Do I Need an Office Air Purifier?

It’s easy to wonder whether wholesale air purifiers are necessary for office buildings — after all, most already have some sort of ventilation or air cleaning system. However, these systems are often out-of-date, and the ducts frequently build up dust or other pollutants like mold or mildew that then gets blown around. Even in workplaces with solid ventilation, the system is working near or at its limit.

A portable, bulk air filter setup will add purification to offices that don’t have an air cleaning system and strengthen performance in offices that do. They also add other, more powerful cleaning elements. Purifiers come in many designs so you can find the right one for your office.

Benefits of adding an Air Purifiers to the Office

Installing air purifiers in bulk has many science-backed advantages for a business. Let’s look at some of the biggest reasons to get an office air purifier:

Productivity

Experts estimate that poor indoor air quality can reduce productivity by as much as 9%. Over a 40-hour workweek, that’s nearly four hours of lost output per person. Improving air quality improves production so your business gets more done.

Overall Health

Air filters are a proven way to get rid of certain germs, viruses and bacteria. One study by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) found the use of HEPA purifiers in schools reduced the spread of COVID-19 by 41%. Air cleaners also capture dust, pollen and other airborne particles that are common allergy and asthma triggers — and they can lower the risk of long-term conditions such as diabetes and heart disease. All this decreases the amount of employee sick days and the cost of benefits to cover illnesses.

Employee Satisfaction

Cleaner air doesn’t just improve physical health — it boosts mental health. Poor air quality has been linked to psychological distress such as depression, anxiety, restlessness and mood swings. Keeping the air cleaner will help with overall satisfaction. A portable air purifier is also a visual signal to employees that you care about their wellbeing.

How Many Air Purifiers Do I Need for the Office?

Now that we’ve established the benefits of office air purification, a common question we get involves how many you should purchase. Setting up the right amount of office air purifiers is crucial. If you don’t have enough, they won’t adequately clean the air. Too many and it’s a waste of money — both in upfront costs and the electricity to power them.

There are three factors to consider when ordering air filters in bulk:

1. Air Purifier Capacity

This is how much air the purifier can clean in the best conditions. Purifiers come in many sizes, which is determined by the Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR) and square-footage rating. The Skye Portable Office Air Purifier has a CADR of 420 cubic feet per minute (CFM) and is optimized for 1,600 square feet. It can clean as much as 3,200 square feet, making it an excellent large-space filtration system.

2. Office Size

The size of your office in square footage correlates to the amount of air it contains. The larger the office, the more air purifying power you need. You can use our room size calculator to determine the minimum air purifier size you need for a given space. Note this is based on an average ceiling height of eight feet; if your office has a higher ceiling, you’ll need slightly more filtration power.

3. Office Layout

The way your office is set up is almost as important as the square footage. Do you have an open-plan office with a few large areas? Or do you have a lot of smaller closed offices? Are partitions frequently put up to divide spaces? The layout affects how much space an air purifier can truly clean. For example, our Skye 5-Stage Air Purifier works fine on a single 1,600-square-foot open space. But if that same footage is divided across 8 offices with closed doors, stairwells and other obstructions, then even a single purifier as powerful as the Skye will not have access to other spaces to keep them clean.

Office Air Purifier Recommendations

For lobbies, large open spaces and individual offices that are fairly open to each other, we recommend large air purifiers. Divide the total square footage of the space by the square footage rating of the air cleaner you’re looking at to determine how many you should buy. For rooms with closed doors, the only way to clean the air effectively is to give each room its own smaller purifier.

In each case, it’s better to err on the side of a bigger air purifier to make sure you have enough cleaning power. The larger purifier will be more efficient overall, and they typically have adjustments to tailor filtration to your space.

You might also consider adding an in-duct UV air purifier such as the Air Health Haven or Haven Plus. They use UV light technology to remove germs, mold, odor and more within the existing air ducts. It should be noted, though, that these are not as effective with dust and dander, so you’ll still need a HEPA filter setup for these particles.