What is the Best Type of Air Filter for Your Home?

In the US, air purifiers are capable of eliminating at least 99.97% of allergens and contaminants from the air, including mold spores and dust as small as 0.3 microns. We have tested more than 50 air purifiers over the past nine years and our measurements have shown that the exceptional Coway Airmega AP-1512HH Mighty is the best of them. It's powerful enough to use in a large room, quiet enough to sleep close to it, designed to last for years, and economical enough to be placed in multiple rooms. Coway's Airmega 200M is virtually identical to Coway's Airmega AP-1512HH Mighty in every important way.

They are equivalent in terms of noise and performance, their filters are interchangeable and their similar controls make it possible to turn off the lights on the screen. The 200M has a square rather than a round grille, but that's the only major physical difference. If you prefer the look of the 200M or find it at a better price, we recommend it. The Levoit Vital 200S matched the Coway Airmega AP-1512HH Mighty in performance tests, and both are very similar in terms of energy efficiency, noise emission and the ability to turn off the screen while maintaining the fan setting you choose.

However, the Vital 200S is a new version (January 2012), so we haven't had time to test it in the long term yet. In conditions where air quality is poor, such as when an area is affected by a nearby wildfire, we recommend running air purifiers at a high temperature for one hour and then running them in a quiet environment or medium to create and maintain clean air in the home. After burning 15 wooden matches (to create a large initial load of fine smoke particles), we tested this method with the Coway Airmega AP-1512HH Mighty and the Airmega 400 for three hours, one hour at high temperature and two at medium temperature. One of the best air filters for domestic ovens are the MERV 8 pleated air conditioning filters for heating, ventilation and air conditioning, which will help you breathe healthy indoors.

Designed to filter particles of 10 microns or more, you don't have to worry about inhaling dust, mold spores and even smoke. In its average configuration (speed three, out of five), the Air Mini+ reduced smoke levels by only 58.7%, compared to 92.6% for the Levoit. Getting an exact fit is crucial to having an effective air filter: an air filter of the wrong size will not fit well and will cause the filter to stop working properly. The most commonly used system applies a MERV number (minimum efficiency value) to each filter, developed by ASHRAE (formerly called the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers).

AirX Allergen filters are MERV 11 and filter particles as small as 1 micron, such as dust, pollen, mold spores, smoke and pollution. One of the advantages of using disposable filters is that you are not exposed to contaminants trapped during cleaning. When you're serious about changing your home's air filters regularly, it helps to have a reliable delivery service. Whether you're preparing for air conditioning in summer or heating in winter, the filter affects the air quality in your home.

And it uses the same technology: it combines a filter that is not HEPA (but it is very efficient) with a system that imparts an electrical charge to any particle that passes through it, helping it to adhere to the filter the next time (basically through static adhesion). We prefer the Coway Airmega AP-1512HH Mighty because of its lower energy consumption, its smaller visual footprint and its manual screen shutdown function.

Lacey Russomano
Lacey Russomano

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