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Pets can be your best friends, until all the shedding and dander start to trigger common allergies. Not only do you have to worry about all the various odors that go along with pet care (litter boxes, carpet accidents, trailing dirt through the house), air quality is an issue you may not have considered. Don’t suffer for your pet baby — getting an air purifier is an easy solution that will help both you and your pets in the long run.
If hypoallergenic animals are out of the question, and you don’t want to spend hours tracking every bit of stray hair and grime they bring in from the outdoors, you’re gonna want an appliance that helps filter the air. The best air purifiers for pets can help filter out everything from visible fur, to microscopic dander you don’t even realize is making you sneeze. Fun fact: pets can have their own allergies too, so keeping the air around your home free from mold and dust will help everyone breathe a little easier.
Related: The Best Vacuums for Pet Hair
But there are so many different varieties and models of air purifiers out there, how do you know which one will be most effective as a pet owner? We’ll we’ve found the best purifiers for pet owners, to dump the dander and keep your pets (and you) free and clear from irritating airborne allergens.
Can An Air Purifier Help With Pet Hair and Dander?
If your major issue is smaller pet hairs drifting around, you’ll want to get a fine mesh filter that traps these hairs in without getting stuck. While this won’t get the hair that’s lodged in your carpet or sofa (try a handheld vacuum for that), but it’s a place to start. For reducing pet dander, air purifiers can be very effective devices, especially those with a HEPA filter. This kind of filter clears the air and removes super tiny particles, as small as 0.3 microns, which is smaller than pet dander (5-10 microns) on average.
What Are the Best Air Purifiers for Pets?
When shopping for the best air purifier for pets online, there are a few things to keep in mind. Here’s what you need to know.
Filter: As we mentioned before, air purifiers with HEPA filters deliver the best results when trapping smaller particles like dander and dust. Excess shedding and pet hair your main problem? Check out an air purifier with a pre-filter that picks up large particles, since they’re often washable too.
Size: Consider the size of the room you’re parking your air purifier in, and how much time your pets actually spend in that room. Many purifiers range in capacity from 150 square feet to 1,000 square feet or more. If your pet likes to run around in bigger rooms and living spaces, obviously, you’ll need a larger air purifier to work effectively.
Noise: Pay attention to how loud your air purifier is, since noisy models can actually scare some pets and do more harm than good. Look for an air purifier that has a “sleep mode,” or at the very least operates at a decibel level similar to white noise.
Odor Removal: Worried about odor? Make sure your air purifier also comes with a carbon filter (or an odor control setting), which is specifically meant to trap particularly pungent smells. The closer your air purifier is to smelly areas (think: the litter box, or your dog’s crate) the more effective it will be at eliminating those odors, too.
1. Levoit Core P350 Pet Care Air Purifier
Amazon
What more can we say? Levoit’s Core P350 Pet Care air purifier has “pet” in the name, and you really can’t go wrong with the superior filtration performance of this choice.
Using a special H13-Grade True HEPA Filter, it reduces up to 99.97 percent of the harmful air pollutants pet owners are most concerned about, like pet dander, pollen, dust mites, and other allergens in rooms up to 219 square feet. While you won’t sweat the small stuff with this purifier, Levoit also claims their fabric pre-filter is more effective than others at capturing larger things, like floating hair and pet fur.
What we like: Levoit added an extra “AirReComposition” formula to their activated carbon filter, which boosts the odor-busting power for super-strong pet odors, like accidents on left on the floor. It also has a special “Pet Lock” to make sure your furry friend doesn’t accidentally mess with any of the settings by touching the buttons, or bumping into the air purifier.
2. Alen BreatheSmart Classic Large Room Air Purifier
Amazon
Designed by NASA airflow engineers (yes, it’s that good) the Alen Breathesmart Classic not only dominates when it comes to pet dander, but also filters out pet fur surprisingly well.
While other air purifiers only remove particles larger than 0.3 microns, this model has a medical-grade H13 True HEPA layer that filters out 99.99 percent of airborne particles larger than 0.1 micron. You know you’re getting the cleanest air possible, since dander, bacteria, and germs won’t stand a chance.
Not only will this help you breathe better by reducing allergens and asthma triggers, you also won’t have to hold your nose around pet messing, since it also includes a patented molecular conversion powder to eliminate heavy pet odors. For a purifier of this size (it cleans air in bigger rooms up to 1,100 square feet), it’s still easy-to-use. An air quality sensor light displays the quality real-time, and adjusts fan speed accordingly for a truly hands-off system.
3. Blueair Blue Pure 211+ Air Purifier
Amazon
While you may still need to keep a couple lint rollers on hand for pet hair stuck to your clothing and carpet, this air purifier from Blueair works twice as hard to filter out pet hair floating in the large — all with less energy usage than you’d think.
The grey fabric in the bottom half isn’t just for show. It’s actually your first line of defense against pet hair, a fabric pre-filter that’s designed to catch all the pet fur, dust, and larger particles in the air around your home. You can toss it in the washing machine and let it air dry to clean, so it’s quite the sustainable solution (still, you can always purchase some if you want a fun color to match your decor).
This is all while being Energy Star-rated for low energy consumption, and no louder than a whisper on the lowest speed (31 dB). The filter itself is also pretty solid, with both electrostatic and particle filtration used to remove 99.97% of airborne pollutants like pet dander, dust, mold, etc in spaces up to 540 square feet.
4. Hamilton Beach TrueAir Air Purifier
Amazon
Sometimes you need a compact air filter for pets that constantly jump into bed with you, or nap in your home office. For smaller spaces, you can’t go wrong with the compact, budget-friendly Hamilton Beach TrueAir Pet Air Purifier.
The TrueAir actually comes with a permanent, reusable filter that can save you money on all those costly filter refills (you clean it by vacuuming the dust and dirt out). Even still, it’s no slouch when it comes to filtration, with a HEPA-grade filter that captures 99.97 percent of dust mites, pollen, and most importantly for you, pet dander.
Small, but versatile, the TrueAir also comes with two replaceable carbon filters to target pet odors, plus a pre-filter for pet hair and larger particles. Set the air purifier vertically or horizontally on any desk or side table, and it’ll clean the air in rooms up to 140 square feet for space-saving filtration.
