The whole home air quality setup
Quick answer
Whole home means one machine per occupied room, not one large machine in the hallway: air does not travel between rooms fast enough for a single unit to serve a house. This setup covers a bedroom and a living space, adds a dehumidifier so a damp room stops growing what the filters are catching, and adds a particle monitor so the result is measured rather than assumed.
Everything in this setup totals $568.67 to buy, and $740.15 once five years of replacement filters are counted.
Genuine Winix Filter Q, 1712-0123-00 with Activated Carbon for Odor Control For Winix 5510, 5520 and 5530
The largest volume in most houses, and usually open to a hallway, so size for the connected space rather than the room on the plan.
Everything in this setup totals $568.67 at current prices.
| Item | What it is | Price | Running total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Living space purifier | Genuine Winix Filter Q, 1712-0123-00 with Activated Carbon for Odor Co | $79.99 | $79.99 |
| Its replacement filter | Improvedhand 5510 5520 Replacement Filter Q Compatible with Winix 5510 | $22.99 | $102.98 |
| Bedroom purifier | GermGuardian HEPA Air Purifier - Large Room Air Purifier for Bedroom, | $99.99 | $202.97 |
| Its replacement filter | GermGuardian, Filter B HEPA Pure Genuine Air Purifier Filter, Removes | $19.88 | $222.85 |
| Dehumidifier | Yaufey 150 Pint Dehumidifier with Pump for Basement 8500 Sq. Ft. | $229.99 | $452.84 |
| Furnace filter | Amazon Basics 20x20x1 Air Filter 6-Pack, MERV 11 AC Furnace Filters, D | $35.87 | $488.71 |
| Particle monitor | Amazon Smart Air Quality Monitor, Detects temperature, humidity, carbo | $69.99 | $558.70 |
| Hygrometer | Antonki 2 Pack Room Thermometer Indoor Hygrometer | $9.97 | $568.67 |
| Total to buy | Everything above | $568.67 | $568.67 |
| Five year total | Including replacement filters | $171.48 in filters | $740.15 |
Get this setup as a printable list
One page with every item in this setup and its current price, plus the five year filter cost, so you can total the whole thing before buying any of it. No sequence of sales emails.
We use this to send the list. You can also just read it on the site.Who this setup is for
It is for a household covering the rooms people actually spend time in, with a basement or a damp room in the picture. It optimises for the buy once position: every occupied room at four and a half air changes an hour, and the moisture dealt with at source.
The three setups on this site are genuinely different builds rather than the same list at three prices. Each tier adds a capability the one below it does not have, which is why the expert setup contains instruments rather than simply larger machines.
Occupied rooms
- Living space purifier
The largest volume in most houses, and usually open to a hallway, so size for the connected space rather than the room on the plan.
- HEPA claimed
- carbon stage
$79.99 Check pricePrices change often - Its replacement filter
Bought repeatedly for as long as the machine runs. Counting this from the start is what stops a cheap machine turning out to be the expensive one.
- carbon stage
- has an ionizer
$22.99 Check pricePrices change often - Bedroom purifier
Eight hours a night in one room is the largest single block of time anybody spends breathing indoor air, which is why the bedroom is the room to do first and properly.
- HEPA claimed
- carbon stage
- has a UV lamp
$99.99 Check pricePrices change often - Its replacement filter
Same arithmetic as the living room filter, on a machine that runs every night.
- HEPA claimed
- carbon stage
$19.88 Check pricePrices change often
Moisture
- Dehumidifier
Yaufey 150 Pint Dehumidifier with Pump for Basement 8500 Sq. Ft.
Getting relative humidity reliably under sixty percent is what stops mould growing. Filtration captures spores already airborne and does nothing about the moisture producing them, so this comes first in any damp space.
$229.99 Check pricePrices change often
The house
- Furnace filter
A denser filter in the return, within what the system can pull through. It works on the whole house whenever the blower runs, which is complementary to the portable machines rather than a replacement for them.
$35.87 Check pricePrices change often
Measurement
- Particle monitor
A PM2.5 reading turns the whole thing from a belief into a measurement. It is also the fastest way to discover that cooking is the largest particle source in the house.
- particle sensor
- app or voice
$69.99 Check pricePrices change often - Hygrometer
Antonki 2 Pack Room Thermometer Indoor Hygrometer
Put it in the damp room rather than beside the dehumidifier, which reads the driest air in the space by the time it has been running an hour.
$9.97 Check pricePrices change often
What to skip
- A purifier for every room in the house. Rooms nobody sits in for hours do not need one, and the budget is better spent on the rooms that are occupied.
- A ducted whole house purifier as the first move. It only cleans while the blower runs, which in mild weather can be a few hours a day.
- Ultraviolet and ionizing add ons. They are options on a filter, not a reason to buy one.
What to upgrade first
The living space machine. It serves the largest volume in the house and it is the one most likely to be undersized, because open plan rooms are bigger than the floor plan suggests once the hallway is connected.
Common questions
What does the whole home setup cost?
$568.67 for everything listed, at current prices. Over five years the replacement filters add $171.48, taking the real total to $740.15. Power is on top of that: a purifier running continuously at fifty watts costs roughly sixty five dollars a year at fifteen cents a kilowatt hour.
Do I have to buy all of it at once?
No, and the order matters more than the total. Buy the machine for the room you spend most time in, then the instrument that tells you whether it worked, then everything else. In a damp space, the dehumidifier comes before any filtration, because drying the space stops the problem rather than catching it.
Who should not buy this setup?
A purifier for every room in the house. Rooms nobody sits in for hours do not need one, and the budget is better spent on the rooms that are occupied. The rest of what to skip is listed further down this page, and it is there because talking somebody out of a purchase is what makes the remaining recommendations worth reading.
Why is a hygrometer or a monitor in a purifier setup?
Because filtration is the only part of indoor air quality that people buy blind. A hygrometer costs very little and tells you whether the room has a moisture problem or a dust problem, which are different problems with different machines. A particle monitor tells you whether the machine you bought is doing anything.
Are the prices current?
They are read from the current listings for each product and they move. The totals on this page are rebuilt from those listings every time the site is published, so treat them as a budget rather than as a quote, and check each item before buying.