Best air purifier for mold and mildew

Last updated on Jul 26, 2021 Air Purifiers
Note: This post may contain affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, we only earn from qualifying purchases!

Do you have growing mold and contaminated air in your home troubling you? Have you tried several home remedies to stop this revolting growth to no avail? Are you looking for an air purifier for mold? Well, look no further! This article is the answer you are looking for. In this article, we have a list of contenders for the best air purifier for mold. The listed air purifiers are good for mold, mold spores, mildew and dust mites.

It is impossible to see mold around your home or office and let it blossom. Mold growing in your home can quickly degrade the quality of the air. The mold makes the air stuffy and the homeowner more prone to allergy episodes. It is therefore important that you protect your home or office from mold and mold spores. We understand that despite your best efforts to aerate your home, it is just too difficult to ensure some areas get complete circulation. This is how an air purifier becomes the solution to your problems. Intake of mold spores can cause lung irritation, as well as itching of eyes and nose, skin irritation and in some extreme cases can lead to hospitalization.

Mold grows well on paper like based products such as ceiling tiles, wood products, cupboards. It also grows in places with vapor such as around pipes, the roof, carpet, walls and fabrics. So mold is guaranteed to crop up in your home. So you will need an air purifier to remove mold growing in your home.

How will an air purifier help fight the mold in your home?

Certain air purifiers on the market are designed with special features meant to fight mold, mold spores and mildew. And some of the best rated air purifier for mold will include the following key features;

HEPA filter

One way to ensure that an air purifier has a fighting chance against mold spores is the HEPA filter. This filter is designed with such efficiency that it can capture small particles of up to 0.3 microns in size. You should know mold spores that settle in the air are within such a size category. Consequently, the HEPA filter will be able to remove the mold spores floating in the air. Most HEPA filters remove 99% of all allergens from your indoor air therefore making it much safer and cleaner. Therefore, this makes the HEPA filter a very good air filter for mold.

HEPA filters have different classes with their corresponding retention rates as shown below.

HEPA classesAverage Retention(>)
U17  99.999995%
U1699.99995%
U15 99.9995%
H1499.995%
H13 99.95%
E12 99.5%
E1195%
E1085%

Mold air purifiers that incorporate silver ion HEPA filter technology help get rid of mold spores and bacteria more effectively hence giving extra protection.

Activated Carbon Filter

Air purifiers with carbon filters remove the bad smell that can result from mold growth.  Activated carbon filters are made with granular carbon mesh that is effective to trap all sorts of household odors including the repugnant smell that can be a by-product of mold growth.

These carbon filters can be found in multiple products not only limited to factory types but also some organic ones (for example those made out of coconut shavings).

The above-mentioned filters usually require regular replacement as directed by the purifier’s replacement guide. This is so as to ensure continued 100% effectiveness all year round.

UV -C- Light Filter

An extra filter of UV-C Light is highly encouraged to eliminate mold fungus 100%. The UV-C light destroys the nucleic acid found within the mold cells while the air flows through the filter. By using this filter, we are making kill mold completely. It is important to note that most UV-c light will take one to two hours to kill mold.

Area coverage

When purchasing an air purifier, you might like to take into consideration how big your home is. This is essential towards reducing down your gross cost if you might require more than one purifier to ensure full room coverage. Purifiers have different square meter coverage capacities and if one with small room coverage is used in a much larger space, you might not get the best results.

For the best results and long lifespan, we would advise you to choose an air purifier that operates at least twice the coverage area you intend to cover so that you can maintain minimal speeds and low noise.

Other factors include;

Certification

The device you purchase must be fully certified so as to ensure that it meets strict performance standards set up by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). You should also look out for these certifications that are worth considering like Energy Star, and the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM). These advise on the most suitable room size for the mold air purifier and provide the Clean Air Delivery Rate of each air purifier.

Warranty

It’s important to check the warranty on the air purifier before you buy it. Mold is recurring, therefore you would need to invest in a mold air purifier that will last a long time or have an option to have it replaced at little or no cost in case it doesn’t work as expected. We therefore advise running the mold air purifier full time to keep your air well filtered and free from any mold and bacteria.

Our list ensures you easily identify the best air purifier for mold spores and what makes it so. So here is our list of air purifiers for mold.

1. The Gocheer (GH-Monster) Smart Air Purifier

Well, the Gocheer GH Monster Smart Air Purifier is indeed a monster when it comes to capturing pollutants. This air purifier can clean up to 4410 square feet in just one hour, 2500 square feet in just 30 minutes, and 1102 square feet in just 15 minutes. This means that it has a remarkable CADR at 1000, which enables it to clean a large area even when fans are running at low speeds. This particular air purifier has an advanced five-stage filtration system.

First is the washable prefilter that catches all the large airborne particles such as dust. The polypropylene pre-filter helps to preserve the H13 True HEPA filter by capturing all airborne particle such as pet hair and more dust particles. It also includes a H13 Medical Grade true HEPA filter to deliver high-end filtration up to 99.97 percent. It removes all the small microns up to 0.3 microns in size hence purifying the breathing air even more.

The anti-bacterial cloth filter is made such that it prevents the growth of bacteria, pollen and mold spores on the surface of the purifier. The cloth filter ensures that all mold or mold spores are filtered out hence eliminating our main problem. The charcoal activated carbon filter eliminates all bad odors that can created by the growth of mold hence preserving fresh breathable air.

The Gocheer air purifier is generally a smart build from its design to other smart features such as fan speed, automatic air quality detection. The smart auto mode also helps to automatically adjust fan speeds depending on the air quality and a sleep mode to provide a low-powered filtration for better sleep.

This device is WIFI enabled and a smartphone app-enabled to make it easy for the homeowner to always automatically monitor the home air quality even when not at home.

If you have children or pets at home that are very curious and like touching things here and there, then you will find the child lock feature handy. You can use the child lock to make sure that kids at home do not modify your preferred settings while you are away.

This air purifier is energy efficient because you can set the timer to run for 1, 2, 3, 4 or 8 hours hence allowing you to conserve energy.

Gocheer Air Purifier
Gocheer Air Purifier

The Gocheer Pros

  • It has a large area coverage.
  • Has a low noise level
  • Is energy efficient with power-saving timer settings
  • Has very good CADR rating
  • Has a child lock feature

The Gocheer Cons

  • It is bulky and heavy to move around
  • Does not have UC-V light

2. Austin Air HealthMate Standard Air Purifier

This purifier provides all-year protection for your family against all indoor pollutants with a four-stage filtration system. The Austin air purifier supports a 360-degree intake of air to be purified. The large particle pre-filter takes care of all fine dust particles and hair. Secondly, there is a layer of the pre-filter that captures all fine-grain particles. It also removes other smaller and medium-sized particles such as pollen, mold spores, and dust mites. The medical-grade true HEPA filter works tirelessly to remove 99.97% of smaller particles thereby reducing all allergy-causing organisms, mold spores included. A combination of the activated carbon filter and zeolite work to neutralize house gases, mold odors and VOCs hence improving air quality immensely.

The Austin air purifier designers designed it to have a large surface area that helps to take in more air each time hence leading to faster filtration and redistribution of fresh air. It also has three fan speeds that can be changed depending on the level of pollutants. As a result, this purifier is the right choice if you are also looking to cover significant square footage every time you run it. It covers up to 1500 square feet. In rooms much smaller than this, the homeowner can enjoy up to six air changes per hour. This number however reduces with bigger rooms to about three air changes, which is still a good metric to consider.

Therefore, the medical grade HEPA technology coupled within its four stage filtration system will ensure your air is free of any lingering mold spores. Furthermore, it will eliminate any bacteria and viruses as well.

Austin Air Healthmate
Austin Air Healthmate

Austin Air Pros

  • Remarkable filtration system.
  • It has an extended warranty
  • It comes in a variety of colors.

Austin Air Cons

  • It is a heavy.
  • Loud noise when fans are running.

3. SilverOnyx Air Purifier

The SilverOnyx is one powerful and yet very portable air purifier. It has room coverage of up to 500 square feet and because of its small size you can easily relocate it to other rooms in your home. This purifier also uses a five-stage filtration system to freshen the air in your home and fight mold plus other allergen-causing particles.

The pre-filter captures all large dust particles and hair particles. The next filter in line is the True H13 HEPA filter that captures up to 99.97% of the finer dust particles and smaller allergy-causing organisms such as pollen, dust mites and mold.  An activated carbon filter made of fine mesh is another defense that neutralizes household odors leaving your home fresh and crisp. The clean air ionizer is useful in ionizing particles and causing them to stick together such that they can be sucked in by the filtration system during air entry for filtration.

The final and most important line of defense, the UV-c light, is made specifically to fight mold. The UV-c light is made such that it breaks up mold spores at a molecular level making it impossible for mold to grow in your home.

This purifier also has user-intuitive controls on its control panel that you can change depending on how fast you would like to clean out the polluted air.

The SilverOnyx has a sleep mode that can be turned on such that the hoe owner enjoys a peaceful uninterrupted sleep while maintaining good air circulation. An airflow button on the panel can be used to choose between the various fan speeds for fast air exchange. You should also know that you don't need to run the ionizer and UV light all the time and that is why the control panel has buttons you can use to turn these features on and off.

Like we have mentioned before, filters in the air purifier require good maintenance and timely replacement to ensure maximum performance of your purifier. As a result, this particular air purifier has an indicator on its screen to show you when the purifiers require replacement.

SilverOnyx Air Purifier
SilverOnyx Air Purifier

SilverOnyx Pros

  • User intuitive control panel
  • Strong and powerful filtration system
  • The purifier is very portable
  • Large room coverage
  • Has color options
  • Is energy efficient

SilverOnyx Cons

  • Has limited control options
  • Has no WIFI connectivity

4. Coway Airmega (AP-1512HH) Air Purifier

The Coway Airmega Air Purifier uses a four-stage filtration system to eliminate odors and other air pollutants in your home.

For airflow control, this purifier uses three fan speeds that aid airflow as the air moves through the filters for purification. In addition to that, is the pre-filter, that removes large particles and hair. The Deodorization filter is the next line of filtration defense and neutralizes the majority of the odors in your air. The odors eliminated include food smells, gases, cigarette fumes as well as VOCs.

This purifier also has a long-life Green true HEPA filter that removes the majority of smaller particles not captured by the pre-filter. It has a high success rate and effectively eliminates mold spores and pollen from your home.

Additionally, vital ionizing technology is used as a final defense point to reduce air particles. It uses a bipolar ionizer that generates an electro-chemical reaction to attract particles in the air such that they are also sucked into and captured by the filters.

The air purifier automatically displays air quality with the help of a user-intuitive air indicator and then switches fan speed to take care of the pollution.

The timer has various settings and can be set to run for a certain number of hours and then automatically shut off. Also, this purifier has an eco-mode that has a low power consumption hence earning the right to be called energy efficient.

Coway also has a mobile application that allows you to directly monitor the quality of air in and out of your house by using your smartphone. With this mobile application, you can get notifications when filters need changes, and live updates of the air quality in your home.

Coway Airmega (AP-1512HH)
Coway Airmega (AP-1512HH)

Coway Airmega Pros

  • It has a mobile application
  • Is energy star rated

Coway Airmega Cons

  • Relatively small coverage
  • This air purifier is a bit on the heavy

5. Pure Enrichment PureZone Elite Air purifier for mold

This purifier is great for fighting against mold and other household allergens because of its advanced four-stage filtration system.

The first stage filtration is the Activated Carbon filter made of fine mesh to absorb the bad odors that include smoke, cooking fumes and also the smell of growing mold leaving your home fresh smelling at all times. This purifier has a medical-grade true HEPA filter of 99.97% success rate that filters out all the small irritants in the air. The next stage of defense is the UC-v light and photocatalyst that is responsible for breaking down the mold spores at a cellular level hence making it impossible for it to grow. Lastly, the final line of defense is the Ionizer which uses ionizing technology by emitting a charge that then attracts and sucks all the particles of opposite charge into the purifier.

With such a four-stage air filtration system, up to 100% of all irritants most especially pollen and mold will be taken out of your home’s breathable air leaving it fresh and crisp.

The PureZone air purifier also has a smart air quality indicator and one can tell how bad the air is. This smart air detection additionally serves the purpose of automatically adjusting fan speeds to clean out the pollutants faster. Even if the air is at its worst possible state, with a CADR rate of 120 CFM for a room of 190 square feet, one will have crisp breathing air in no time. This purifier is also energy efficient because it has fan timer settings such that if the air quality is at its best, the fans shall be turned off to conserve energy.

Also, if you are a light sleeper and are easily woken up by the slightest noise, no worries. The Purezone Elite has a sleep mode feature that sets the purifier to run at its lowest noise setting so that you can enjoy a peaceful rest.

Finally, this particular model is light and has a convenient handle to help you move it around from room to room. So, you can fight mold in each room of your home like a superhero!

PureZone Elite 4-in-1 air purifier
PureZone Elite 4-in-1 air purifier

PureZone Elite Pros

  • Advanced filtration system
  • Is very light and portable
  • Low noise level
  • Has smart features

PureZone Elite Cons

  • Small room coverage

Below is a comparison table for best air purifier for mold, mold spores and mildew to help you find your dream mold air purifier easily.

Best air purifier for mold comparison table

NAMEGocheer-GH-Monster
*best air purifier for mold
Austin AirSilverOnyx Air purifierCoway Air MegaPure Zone Elite
Model NumberGH-MonsterB400B18541832765  AP-1512HH  PEAIRTWR
Fan speed43533
Filtration5 stage4 stage5 stage3 level4 stage
UV -C lightnonoyesnoYes
HEPA filteryes
Area Coverage2500 square feet1500 square feet500 square feet325 square feet190 square feet
Warranty1 year5 years1 year3 years5 years

In conclusion, fighting mold with these air purifiers is guaranteed to give you good results.

However, for better results, it is recommended to use an air purifier along with other good house practices for faster results.

  • Check and ensure proper air ventilation: Bathroom, toilets and kitchen are the areas most vulnerable to mold growth. Make sure that the ventilation work is professional enough and can also let all the moisture out of the house.
  • Fix any leakages:  A poor plumbing system or leaky roof can create the right environment for mold growth. If any wet areas occur as a result of these leakages, immediately dry them out and stop the leakages.
  • Drain rooms in case of flooding: Don’t ignore your flooded basement, this water will produce a lot of moisture and is the perfect environment for mold growth. So please keep watch of your basement area or any places in your house that are likely to experience this kind of disaster
  • Open Windows Often: While it seems like a lot of work to open windows every day, this is the cheapest and most effective way to improve air circulation in your home. Cool fresh air will be allowed entry and will drive out the dry and stuffy air.  So, if mold is your common house guest, then you might want to give yourself a push and get those windows open mostly when doing chores like cooking.
  • Clean Carpets often: If you smell an unpleasant odor in your rooms with carpets, it’s best not to ignore it, remove a part of it and do a thorough check because mold might be spreading in your house. Carpets are naughty for their high absorption of water that can lead to mold growth.  Invest in good quality carpets, vacuum carpets often and call a professional to attend to them and thoroughly clean them at least once every year to stay free from mold.
  • Don’t dry clothes inside the house: It can be less hectic to put clothes on hangers in the bathroom to dry but the moisture that evaporates from them can stick to the walls or ceiling and lead to mold growth. If you are lacking outdoor space to hang wet clothes consider investing in a dryer or even open all your windows when drying your clothes indoors.
  •  Invest in mold removal products:  Besides buying an air purifier, supplement this with a product at your local hardware store or supermarket as recommended by the specialists.

Finally, if all the above-recommended methods do not stop the mold, please consult a professional on the matter or consider relocating to places with less humidity and fresher air.

You can choose to prevent mold before it occurs but if it occurs, no need to panic, just pick your favorite air purifier and deal with it. There is no place like home, we therefore owe it to ourselves to keep a mold-free environment all the way.

Featured Posts

Related Posts