Your Vacuum Cleaner May Be Killing You.
Yes that’s right, your vacuum cleaner may be killing you or at the very least making you sick. Almost every time we perform air quality test on a vacuum cleaner it fails miserably. In many cases, it’s clients with severe allergies or asthma that are really diligent in keeping their homes clean that seemingly have the worst polluters. These people vacuum their house daily to every other day and pollute the air the most.
Don’t be fooled by HEPA vacuums…Some of these are the worst indoor air quality polluters.
Ok. So let’s dissect this a little first.
All of our homes no matter how clean we try to keep them, including my own home, have dust, fibres, allergens and pathogens in the air. Even mould. There is no such thing as a mould free environment. The outdoor air has a normal fungal ecology of airborne mould spore activity. These mould spores come indoors through natural ventilation, cracks in the building envelope, doors and window frames and each time you open the front door or a window.
As occupants we create dust through hair, dandruff, and skin cells. Our clothing, contents and indoor activities also add to the dust load. Our walls breathe and exchange air every time the wind blows or we turn on the kitchen or bathroom exhaust fan. So in short we are constantly creating dust, fibres and biological allergens from mould spores, bacteria and viruses from occupants, kids, pets, etc.
All of this airborne particulate will eventually settle on surfaces such as furniture, hardwood floors, tile floors and carpeting. This is why we need to dust and vacuum our homes.
Now when we use a vacuum, all of these settled pollutants mentioned above including rodent droppings (you’d be surprised how may homes have unseen rodents), dust mites and other biologicals are sucked into the vacuum cleaner. Whether it is a bagless vacuum cleaner or one with a bag, dust buster, etc. The vacuum cleaner works the same.
The real difference between good indoor air quality and poor indoor air quality is what happens to all this dust, allergens and pathogens once it is sucked into the vacuum cleaner. Here is where it is absolutely crucial that you have a vacuum cleaner that was built properly with quality seals. Also, HEPA filtered vacuum cleaners tend to keep more of the pollutant inside the vacuum cleaner and prevent the allergens and pathogens from coming back out of the air exhaust of the vacuum cleaner.
Be careful. Most HEPA vacuum cleaners have a HEPA filter…but air leaks past the filter allowing pathogens and allergens to become airborne again. Just because it says HEPA on the vacuum cleaner…doesn’t mean that your vacuum cleaner is actually HEPA efficiency.
HEPA stand for High Efficiency Particulate Arrestance or a very highly efficient air filtration membrane that can block and trap 99.97% of particles (dust, allergens, pathogens) sized 0.3 microns or larger. This means that only .03 of dust particles that size flow through the HEPA filter. However, that is only if all the air is forced through the HEPA filter. If air is allowed to leak past the filter it is no longer at HEPA efficiency and could in many cases not block any particles depending on how large the air flow breach is.
Most vacuum cleaners that have a HEPA filter but poorly designed or poorly made air seals around the filter membrane will not achieve the intended filter efficiency.
This means that ordinary vacuum cleaners or vacuum cleaners with HEPA filters that leak air may be aerosolizing fine dust, allergens and pathogens back into the air you breathe. In other words, you could be sucking up these health threats off your floor and furniture only to inhale them in the air you breathe due to poor filter design or poorly made vacuum cleaners.
How do you know if the HEPA vacuum cleaner you bought is really protecting your health? Simple. Verify Air Quality Test can test your vacuum cleaner with a laser particle counter and show you how much dust is being thrown back into the air you breathe. We can help show you what you are breathing from vacuum cleaners and air purifiers. Call us today.
Another good source for Healthy Home advice and vacuum cleaners that may be killing you is the following link.
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