De-Nasty The Air

I’ll get to this air purifier in a minute. But first, a little bit of life news:

At the end of last year, my family and I moved into a new home. A bit more room, a bit more convenience, a better layout, a bit newer (but not too new)–it was an upgrade in almost every way from the quaint yet cramped and creaky bungalow in which we’d lived for almost seven years.

And the most exciting part for me?

A nicer kitchen!

Sure, it’s not much bigger than our old kitchen, but it’s more efficiently laid out. A solid amount of counter space, better counters, great storage, a nice little nook for coffee stuff so it’s not in the way when I’m cooking. Just a wonderful space.

But there was one thing I didn’t take into consideration.

In our old house, the range was situated under a big hood vent. Now, this thing was ancient. If something broke on it, we couldn’t find replacement parts. Not exactly one of the super cool ones you see in the ads for kitchen remodelers is what I’m getting at. But a hood vent nonetheless.

In our new house, the stove sits against a non-exterior wall under the microwave, and this serves as the vent: it sucks air up from the range and pushes it out. And let me tell you, this setup has some serious benefits. For example, I have no trouble remembering what I cooked three days ago… BECAUSE I CAN STILL SMELL IT.

Which is to say nothing of the actual cooking surface. In the old house, we put in a gas stove. Here, we’re back to electric. So I’m relearning how difficult it is to do seemingly simple things like “reduce to low heat and simmer.” The result has been no shortage of smoke.

In the spring, when I could open the windows and let out some air, this was just annoying. Now that we’re running the AC all the time and the house is shut up, it’s devastating.

Will this air purifier solve things in my kitchen? Probably not totally. But lord knows it would help. After all, it’s got a true HEPA filter that can remove up to 99.97% of airborne particles as small as 0.3 microns in rooms up to 975 square feet, plus an activated carbon filter for reducing nasty odors. Hell, it can even diffuse essential oils if you want it to. (But it doesn’t have to.)

In conclusion, your air, like mine, is probably gross. This will make it less so.

So buy one.