“The public is becoming more knowledgeable about IAQ [indoor air quality], partly due to increased media coverage and the availability of consumer-friendly monitoring devices. This trend is driving demand for solutions that can deliver tangible improvements in air quality.”
As our article on the America at Home Study demonstrated, homeowners have begun to see their residence as a place that can contribute to (or detract from) their overall wellness. And wellness starts with air quality; according to Greystar Real Estate, fresh air ventilation and premium filters are top technological necessities among surveyed residents (#1 and #4 respectively). Some contractors have begun to respond by including air purification in their project designs. Here’s which contractors are heeding the call and the data that support their choice.
Why Are Consumers Demanding Air Purification?
That certain consumers are demanding greater air purification isn’t in doubt. A 2021 study by the Farnsworth Group found that air quality was the top “healthy home” concern of both owners (63%) and renters (54%). While the COVID-19 pandemic likely inflated these numbers, more recent reports also see a growing demand; for instance, Straights Research projects that the global air purifier market will grow 7.56% per year over the next 8 years.
What is the impetus behind this increase?
- The pandemic baby bump might play a role. Families with children are more likely to take an active interest in air purification. For one, families with new children are especially likely to move, and new movers spend 4 times as much on home improvements as non-movers (at least on an individual basis). Also, children breathe more air relative to their body size, and so are more susceptible to air pollution and respiratory ailments.
- Of course, consumers are simply more aware of the air they breathe. The COVID-19 pandemic brought all forms of air contamination into the public spotlight, whether that be PM2.5 from wildfires or novel viruses. Per Straights, the WHO “estimates that indoor air pollution causes 4.3 million premature deaths yearly from heart disease, stroke, lung disease, and cancer.”
- The rise of machine learning has also made air purification more attractive to certain consumers. Many purifiers can be incorporated into whole-house real-time monitoring systems, granting them a ‘set it and forget it’ level of user-friendliness.
What Are the Benefits of Offering Indoor Air Purification?
Contractors who do provide air purification and other wellness amenities definitely see the benefit. According to the Farnsworth Group, providing healthy home services:
- expands the customer base for 73% of contractors
- increases customer loyalty and/or satisfaction for 63% of contractors
- gives 61% of contractors a competitive edge
- and increases the average project size for 47% of contractors
Other benefits include getting ahead of government regulations and generating a more specialized workforce for their business.
Farnsworth highlights larger firms as the recipients of these benefits. According to their research, 78% of contractors with an average revenue of $1 million or more had performed indoor air quality improvements in the last 3 years.
However, considering that offering air purification results in larger projects, it’s not clear which is the cause and which is the effect. In other words, it’s not that larger firms are more likely to offer air purification; it’s that those who offer air purification are more likely to become larger firms. Consider that 50% of contractors initiate the conversation about healthy home amenities (while only 35% of customers do) and one realizes that the opportunity is entirely the contractors to seize (or lose).
Which Contractors Are Installing Air Purification in Homes?
ActivePure works with 2 modular home builders who have fully seized the opportunity.
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The Amherst Group is installing ActivePure® indoor air purification technology in every home of their new Firefly community in Lockhart, TX.
- Their StudioBuilt™ homes pair especially well with indoor air purification. The fact that they are built indoors lowers costs by removing weather delays. Also, because they are planned and designed in advance, the air purification installation is seamless and subtle.
- Another firm developing affordable, middle-class modular homes is ProBuilder. Their Picket Fence concept home in Pittsburg was designed using data from the America at Home study to provide a “new blueprint for urban living.” The Picket Fence contains a full townhouse plus an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) bursting with wellness technology — including the ActivePure Induct Guardian III.
New homes do have one problem, however; fabricated materials tend to release volatile organic compounds (VOC gases) into the air. How does ActivePure stand against these? On behalf of ActivePure, a third-party organization running a Department of Energy-sponsored study compared the air in the Picket Fence’s main unit (which has the ActivePure Induct Guardian III) vs. the ADU (which does not). According to another study, the “recommended value for TVOC concentrations is 200 µg/m3[...].” The ADU, to its credit, already had achieved a level well below this (129 µg/m3). However, the unit with the Induct Guardian III fared even better, registering a level of only 73 µg/m3!
The ActivePure Induct Guardian III also affects particulate matter (PM). (Note that keeping PM2.5 levels ≤5 µg/m3 is ideal.) Without the Induct Guardian III, levels in the ADU were measured at 7.76 µg/m3. Meanwhile, the unit under the protection of the Induct Guardian III registered an astoundingly low 1.85 µg/m3.
Clearly, the ActivePure Induct Guardian III provides the tangible results that consumers want. The only question is, will your contracting firm be the one to reap the rewards? Partner your next building project with the Induct Guardian III today.
