Best air purifier for basement | 2022 Ultimate Buyer’s Guide

What air purifier is best for mold? Mold is a type of fungi that destroys both the look of your house and your health. For this reason, it is important to pick an air purifier that was designed to address this issue. The first thing to consider before buying an air purifier for mold is technology.

High-Efficiency Particulate Arrestance or HEPA filters are able to remove harmful airborne particles that are as small as 0.3 microns. Secondly, choose a model with several speed settings as it will allow you to control the rate of airflow.

When the humidity in the room increases, you should set up the device on a higher speed level because under these conditions, mold begins to grow faster.

Third, look at the product’s coverage area. Destroying mold partially is unlikely to yield satisfactory results, which is why you need to make sure that your mold air purifier covers the entire area of the treated space.

Which Air Purifier for Mold Is Best for Basement?

• HEPA filter

If you are looking for the highest quality air purifiers, then you will probably want to look for one that has a HEPA filter; a high-proficiency particulate air filter. They can be the best when it comes to removing nearly all harmful particles like dust, pollen, bacteria, and even mold, according to the Environmental Protection Agency; EPA.

• CADR values

While HEPA filters can indeed clean the air far better, nearly all air purifiers have a limit when it comes to how much air they can clean based on their size. The EPA made a simple chart that can show just how much a room can be cleaned by a single portable air cleaner or purifier based on the size of the room. For example, Coway has a high CADR rating: Dust 246 / Pollen 240 / Smoke 233 cb. ft.

Similar to an air conditioner or a dehydrator, if you are looking for an air purifier for a single room, you should try to get one with the minimum clean air delivery rate (CADR) rating for that room size to get the best results.

• Stages of filtration

Depending on the purifier itself and the filter it has, there can be as few as three stages or as many as five, but these are stages of cleaning. Put simply, they are just how many ways the purifier can clean.

The most common first stages are antibacterial and antifungal before the HEPA filter to remove most if not all of the possible particles that are being put through the filter. Then, usually, there is a charcoal or carbon filter for removing any odors in the air; whether caused by the particles or not.

Some of the higher quality purifiers also have an extra stage of protection by having a plasma generator that helps to disinfect and sterilize any of the air that is being pushed out after those first stages.

• Coverage | Best air purifier for a large basement

You can find some portable models that can cover as little as a 100-square-foot room or a stationary like this one that covers a 1560-square-foot house or large basement, and there are many more for rooms/apartments/houses in between that.

What Are the Trusted Brands of Air Purifiers for Mold?

There are a few brands you might recognize if you have ever shopped around for other home devices like air conditioners, humidifiers, and more. Typically, you might find that some brands focus more on efficiency than appearance and vice versa for others.

Coway seems to be one of the most popular brands since many of their models fit this description, but they are also designing many of their models to be more accessible to their users.

Winix and Honeywell make some pretty great-looking models as well, and some out there are even just as powerful as some of the higher-end Coway models at an affordable price.

Air purifiers with PlasmaWave technology. Odor-reducing PlasmaWave filter captures and breaks down at a molecular level mold spores, viruses, bacteria, odors, allergens, and chemical vapors.

How Air Purifiers for Mold Differ

This review covers the best air purifiers on the market. There are options with a True HEPA filter that covers from 360 up to 1560 square feet and an air purifier that features an advanced Eco mode for reduced energy consumption. There is a model equipped with an odor-reducing carbon filter and a smart air purifier compatible with Alexa.

1. HEPA + the Highest CADR rating | Best air purifier for musty smell

It is one of the few models that uses a 4-stage system the main filter, deodorizer, then the HEPA filter, and finally the Vital Ion sterilizer.

It has a very high CADR: Dust 246 / Pollen 240 / Smoke 233 cb. ft. It also reduces volatile organic compounds by more than 99% and reduces fumes such as NH3 and CH3CHO.

It has about as many settings as the last model, so it can be a bit easier to use, but it also has a sterilizer setting that you can use to help clean the air a bit more thoroughly. This model also comes in white and black.

This is one of the smaller and portable models that can be more suited for spaces up to 361 sq.ft, than an entire apartment.

Coway: Check the current price

2. Best for 1560 sq. ft. basement | Alexa Compatible

If you are looking for the best of the best, it can be hard to beat this model when it comes to coverage, design, and controllability.

It has all of the controls as the previous models, which you can access straight from your phone, and can clean the air of a small home or a large apartment without the need of another purifier, and it is only a little bit larger than most of the other models out there.

You can also get it in a smaller size or white if you need one a little less powerful and a little more affordable.

3. HEPA Air Purifier for up to 465 sq. ft basement

This air purifier, like the others, can be one of the best if you have a pet that can make it a little harder to breathe with the extra pet hair and dander. While it does cover an entire studio-sized apartment up to 465 sq.ft, it can be a pretty powerful option for a basement gym.

You can get it in white, black, and even black with Bluetooth controls. With the simple controls for the non-Bluetooth model, it can be easy enough for even the most technologically challenged to use, too.

How Do Air Purifiers for Mold Differ?

Speed settings

Like fans, most air purifiers can have multiple speed settings so that they can work as much or as little as you need them to, and there are usually around three or so. However, you can also find some with an automated fan to run on a certain time frame or have a timer to be more eco-friendly.

Function/stage control

You can also find a few high-quality purifiers where you can personally control just what stages or functions are being used, like the sterilizer, but if you are looking for the best of the best, there are some with Bluetooth and/or wifi connectivity so that you can control the purifier directly from your phone.

Quiet mode

You might find that one of the most needed settings can be the quiet mode, though, especially if you hate white noise. Many air purifiers do not get much louder than a low hum, even on the highest fan speed. However, most are built with a quiet mode to make it as soft as a whisper, but it might not work as strongly when it is in this setting.

Stages of filtration

There can be from three to five stages of filtration.

The first stage is antibacterial and antifungal. In the second stage HEPA filter removes most of the dangerous particles like dust, pollen, bacteria, and mold. Then, there is a charcoal or carbon filter that removes musty smells, odors, volatile organic compounds, and fumes such as NH3 and CH3CHO.

The high-end purifiers have an extra fourth stage where an Ion ionizer or the plasma generator disinfects and sterilizes the air.

Can an air purifier act as a dehumidifier?

Unfortunately, not. Air purifiers clean the air from harmful particles like dust, pollen, bacteria, and mold during the antibacterial and antifungal filtration stage. But they don't reduce humidity.

Air Purifier and Dehumidifier for Basement

Unfortunately, there are no trusted and efficient 2-in-1 Air purifiers with dehumidifiers for the basement. There are some combo models of dehumidifiers but they have a very simple washable filter that cannot fight mold spores or volatile organic compounds as HEPA filters do.

So if you have high humidity and growing mold in your basement you should use both devices high-efficiency air purifier + dehumidifier.

How to Install an Air Purifier to Get the Best Effect?

If you are buying an air purifier online, you may either want to have the professional installation done to ensure that it gets completely set up properly.

You may not think so, but it is actually very easy for the filter to not work at all if not put together properly. It may turn on and pull the air through, but it would not clean the air as well if at all if the setup is not done just right; they can be pretty temperamental.

Although, once they are put together and you know how to clean and manage them, they are fairly easy to use, sort of like an air conditioning unit, if you do plan to put it together yourself, you should try to make sure that you are doing all of the following:

• Make sure the unit and any parts that came with it are not damaged in any way before putting it together
• Follow all of the instructions that they come with, and if they did not come with instructions, look for them online (for your exact model)
• After turning the filter on for the first time (having the settings on as the instructions say), make sure to regularly check the filter to ensure that it is working (it can take as little as a few hours or as many as a few days before there are signs of wear on the filter)
• Make sure that you only put the correctly-sized filter in the unit whether you are initially putting it together or are regularly replacing the filter