How much does an Air Purifier cost to run?

With cost of living top of mind and soaring energy prices, we are all entitled to ask how much it costs to run equipment that we may wish to purchase.

If you’re looking at investing in an air purifier, you probably want to know how much it costs to run one. 

In this blog article we’ll deep dive into how much it costs to run an air purifier, but if you want the good news quickly – the fact is that air purifiers don’t use very much electricity!  Most air purifiers have a maximum wattage of 200, and in automatic mode will easily run on between 10 and 30 watt settings.

By comparison, your typical kitchen fridge consumes about 3 to 5 times as much energy.  Running an air purifier constantly draws about as much energy off the grid as your smartphone charger.

The calculation equation for the cost of running an air purifier is as follows:

Power Consumption = (Wattage * kWh cost * Time (hours))/1000

So if you have a 40 watt air purifier running at maximum speed and you wanted to know how much it would cost to have running for 24 hours solid – the sum would be as follows:

40 x £0.34 (UK Electricity KW cost per hour) x 24 = £326.40 then divided by 1000 = £0.32p to have your air purifier on 24/7 – or £116.80 to have it operational all year round.

That’s unlikely though as we would recommend that you leave the air purifier on automatic mode (ie a lower wattage), and ideally have them switched off when rooms are not occupied.   Most air purifiers on this basis would cost less than £30 per year to run.

Something to look out for when buying an air purifier are ENERGY STAR certified room air purifiers.  These air purifiers are over 25% more energy-efficient than standard models, saving consumers about 120 kWh/year

Another thing to look at is the Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR) per watt as this helps you identify the most energy efficient air purifier.  The higher the CADR/Watt rate the more energy efficient the air purifier is.

Clean air delivery rates is the amount of air measured in cubic metres per hour, that an air purifier can clean at each setting/or maximum fan speed.

So if you have the Zona 620 which has a CADR of 620 at max fan speed and runs at 50 watts – you have a CADR per watt rate of 15.5 which is excellent efficiency.  Generally the average CADR per watt rate is around 5 or less.

If your air purifier has a dehumidifier then it may also have a compressor, which will make it more expensive to run. 

We hope that this short article has helped answer your questions as to how much it costs to run an air purifier.

With the average cost of just 8p per day of electricity cost to have an air purifier running, we think you will agree that is a very small price to pay to have constantly pure air circulating in the space you live and breathe.

If you’d be interested in having a chat with one of our advisors to find out more – feel free to reach out to one of our team today!