WellAware Blog

In the past, a commercial air filtration system was a luxury that only a minority of businesses could afford to implement. It was rare to see businesses invest in the technology, in large part due to a general lack of awareness of the importance of indoor air quality (IAQ) and clean air monitoring.

Even though we spend 90% of our lives indoors, indoor air quality just wasn't something most of us thought about...at least until COVID-19 hit. Now, IAQ is top of mind for people all over the world. The public is now at least somewhat familiar with the concept of IAQ and why it’s so important.

As a result, not only are homeowners more likely to purchase commercial-grade air purifiers for their residences, but businesses are also making huge investments in commercial air purification and smart air purifiers. We’re seeing organizations purchase not one, but tens, hundreds, or even thousands of portable air cleaners to combat viruses and better protect their indoor spaces and people.

With this paradigm shift comes many new opportunities and challenges to improve commercial air purifier systems. We hear one challenge in particular at PureAware every day: 

“We are planning to purchase a fleet of commercial air purifiers but are overwhelmed by the thought of having to manage and maintain all of them. I don’t have people that can check every air purifier, every day. We are also concerned about air purifier energy costs and our ability to extend the useful life of our air filters. Those costs add up!”

Add up they do.

Letting a single HEPA purifier in your bedroom run 24/7 with little to no insight about performance is fine – your costs are likely trivial. But, letting 50, 250, or 1,000 units run unsupervised and unoptimized… that’s a BIG problem. 

There are two main cost buckets to control when it comes to the “unmanaged fleet” model: air purifier energy costs and air purifier filter costs. Let’s talk about air purifier energy costs first.

A moderately power hungry purifier can easily consume $0.50-$1.00 worth of energy in one day (maybe even more depending on the cost/kWh in your area). Across a fleet of 100 units (a relatively low number for large commercial air filtration system deployments), a 24-hour run cycle equates to roughly $18,000 to $36,000 per year in air purifier energy costs.

Now for the air purifier filter costs. 

By letting units run 24/7 (which is a common and misguided recommendation by most purifier manufacturers… a blog topic for another day), facilities managers use 2 times more filters than they would use if they ran air purifier schedules according to typical occupancy (with some buffer before people enter spaces, so that air is purified upon entry). While air filter costs vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, companies who use commercial air purification systems can easily rack up $30,000+ in annual spend.

So, together, using relatively low-end estimates, we are looking at $50,000 to $70,000 per year in uncontrolled air purifier energy and filter costs across a moderate fleet of 100 units. That’s far from trivial for your average facilities manager.

The solution? 

It’s simple. Use a commercial air filtration system that can manage air purifier scheduling intelligently – one that allows you to automatically turn smart air purifiers on and off according to your space’s occupancy patterns. Doing so enables you to optimize air purifier energy and filter costs, as well as take advantage of remote visibility into filter operation, performance, location, etc.

Well, as they say, “there’s an app for that.” Specifically, a smart air purifier app called PureAware, which now includes commercial air purifier scheduling.

With PureAware’s latest update, you can do exactly this. Our new “Air Purifier Fleet Scheduling” feature makes it easy to clean indoor air efficiently and align air purifier schedules with occupancy so that you don’t overspend on energy and filters. And as far as we know, PureAware is the ONLY commercial air purifier fleet management control and optimization platform on the market that can do this.

To learn more, visit our PureAware web page today.