How a Vacuum Cleaner Affects Home Air Quality
If your area has poor air quality right now, you may have heard that vacuuming your home is not a good idea. Again, a vacuum cleaner is also a tool that can help remove dust and allergens from your home, which suggests that sometimes this is a good thing . There is truth to both, so here’s what you need to know.
The vacuum cleaner raises dust
Regardless of how you vacuum, you’re likely kicking up dust, which is why public health agencies like the Oregon Health Department recommend not vacuuming when there is smoke from wildfires in the air. (The vacuum cleaner kicks up dust every time you do this, but when the air is smoky outside, it’s important that the indoor air is clean so you have a place where you can breathe a little easier.)
When you vacuum, several things happen. First, the dust deposited on the surface is disturbed, and although most of it falls into the vacuum, not all of the dust. Secondly, vacuum cleaners tend to leak, so not all the dust sucked into the vacuum cleaner stays there. And finally, the vacuum cleaner itself can only create dust because the buzzing mechanism moves and breaks over time, so microscopic pieces of brushes can end up in the air.
Actual HEPA filters trap dust
So how then can a vacuum cleaner help? Or is there a vacuum cleaner that generates less dust? The best choice is a vacuum that uses a HEPA (high efficiency air filter) filter correctly. This means two things:
- The vacuum filter is HEPA compliant , “capable of capturing 0.3 micron particles with an efficiency of 99.97%.”
- The vacuum is designed so that air cannot escape through the filter. This is sometimes referred to as a “sealed system”.
This second requirement makes vacuum considerably more expensive, which is why many vacuums advertise that they have a HEPA filter. This is great, but if the vacuum does not allow all the air to pass through the filter, the type of filter does not really matter.
HEPA vacuum cleaners can still collect dust, so there is no perfect solution here. The American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology recommends that if you are allergic to dust, you either want to wear an N95 respirator while vacuuming, or have a non-allergic person vacuum for you. They note that it takes about two hours for the dust to settle. So you can vacuum to remove dust from your area, but plan carefully to minimize the amount of dust that gets into the air.