Will a HEPA vacuum help ease allergies and asthma?

Does a vacuum with HEPA filter help asthma sufferers more than a regular vacuum, or not?

Share your thoughts and include a reference or reasoning and earn one of our BS Buster badges.

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Is HEPA the lead-up to HEPAchew?

An example of onomatopoeia?

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:joy: I might have said no, but the all-caps HEPA naming convention has me suspicious.

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I can find an Australian Standard AS 3544-1988 for industrial vacuum cleaners, but can’t find one for domestic vacuum cleaners. If there isn’t one, then any HEPA claims must be viewed with a degree of scepticism.

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From a page by InovaAir about HEPA filters

"HEPA filters known as High-Efficiency Particulate Arrestance filters were originally developed to filter fine radioactive particles. A HEPA filter will filter with a minimum efficiency 99.97% of particles 0.3 microns and 95% of particles 0.1 microns. With 1 micron measuring just 1/10,000 of a centimetre and the smallest particle visible to the naked eye being 40 microns. 0.3 microns is many times smaller than dust mites, mould spores, pet allergens and pollens. HEPA filters are widely used in medical applications including: cleanrooms, pharmaceutical manufacturing and any environment where clean or sterile conditions are required.

Medical grade HEPA filters are made from highly efficient filter paper. The paper is folded in a concertina configuration to maximise the surface area of the filter and allow air to flow through with minimal resistance. There is a certain ratio of filter paper to airflow volume which must be followed in the construction of the filter to achieve the 99.97% efficiency rating. If there is not enough filter paper, efficiency will not be to HEPA standards.
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NB: Most residential HEPA air purifiers sold in Australia do not conform to medical grade HEPA standards. There is no regulatory authority which monitors claims by manufacturers that HEPA filters sold in either vacuum cleaners or air purifiers are actually 99.97% efficient." (my bolding)

Also from Wikipedia is this:

" Many vacuum cleaners also use HEPA filters as part of their filtration systems. This is beneficial for asthma and allergy sufferers, because the HEPA filter traps the fine particles (such as pollen and dust mite feces) which trigger allergy and asthma symptoms. For a HEPA filter in a vacuum cleaner to be effective, the vacuum cleaner must be designed so that all the air drawn into the machine is expelled through the filter, with none of the air leaking past it. This is often referred to as “Sealed HEPA” or sometimes the more vague “True HEPA”. Vacuum cleaners simply labeled “HEPA” may have a HEPA filter, but not all air necessarily passes through it. Finally, vacuum cleaner filters marketed as “HEPA-like” will typically use a filter of a similar construction to HEPA, but without the filtering efficiency. Because of the extra density of a true HEPA filter, HEPA vacuum cleaners require more powerful motors to provide adequate cleaning power.

Some newer models claim to be better than the first models because of “washable” filters. Generally, washable true HEPA filters are expensive. Some manufacturers claim filter standards such as “HEPA 4”, without explaining the meaning behind them. This refers to their Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value (MERV) rating. These ratings are used to rate the ability of an air cleaner filter to remove dust from the air as it passes through the filter. MERV is a standard used to measure the overall efficiency of a filter. The MERV scale ranges from 1 to 20, and measures a filter’s ability to remove particles from 10 to 0.3 micrometre in size. Filters with higher ratings not only remove more particles from the air, they also remove smaller particles."

So taking all the info and passing it through a filter gives an answer that it probably helps but it most likely isn’t true HEPA filtering.

The European Standard & testing requirements for HEPA filters can be read at the following links:

http://www.gttlab.com/uploads/soft/161025/EN1822-1-2009Highefficiencyairfilters(EPA,HEPAandULPA)Part1Classification,performance.pdf

http://www.ecmoptec.ru/download/pr2.pdf

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Depends what is the trigger for the asthma or allergy.

If we assume that a HEPA filter on a domestic vacuum is effective in removing very fine dust particles from surfaces it cleans, and one’s asthma/allergy is triggered by the same dust particles caught by the HEPA filter, then yes, for such individuals a fully functioning HEPA filter on a domestic vacuum cleaner may reduce the potential triggers for asthma/allergies. Such has the potential to reduce exposure to the trigger materials.

If ones allergies are triggered by compounds or other agents which aren’t trapped by a HEPA filter, such as some of these, then a HEPA filter on a domestic vacuum cleaner will have no effect on the potential for an individual to have an asthma attack/allergic reaction. The potential incidence of a asthma attack or allergies reaction would be the same (in fact could be higher if the vacuum results in the dispersion of these trigger materials on a surface into the air from the vacuuming action).

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I am not going to bother doing any actual research for this, I’ll just go with logic.

The idea of a HEPA-compliant vacuum cleaner appears to be that it sucks up the particulate matter that would cause an allergic reaction. So far so good.

Okay, where does the vacuum cleaner suck that particulate matter from? The floor/carpet. Hands up those allergy sufferers who spend their days sniffing carpets.

How does the particulate matter get onto the floor/carpet? Two ways:

  1. There are lice and other small creatures that live in our homes’ microbiomes. They live on things like the skin flakes that we drop every second of every day of our lives, and the other stuff that blows in like bits of plant matter.
  2. All those other bits of matter, like dead skin and grass seeds etc.

If you’re allergic to category 1, then unless you’re stirring them up a lot by walking across the carpet this shouldn’t normally be an issue. Make sure your bed linen is clean - and not just by using a vacuum cleaner on it!

If you’re allergic to category 2, then vacuuming the carpet and floors is of bugger all help because you’re not breathing them in at ground level! Most of the stuff you’re breathing is on its way down, not up - that’s how gravity tends to work. There is not normally a strong breeze indoors to stir the carpetsphere into the air, so you would be better off putting HEPA-compliant filters on your windows and doors. And wearing a face mask filter.

Yes, it is likely that walking on carpets will stir up the microbiome - but this has to be a tiny proportion of everything you are breathing in throughout your days and nights.

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Thanks for the comments folks! Here’s an article from CHOICE on HEPA filters.

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