You may have one or more air purifiers in your home – but have you considered putting one in your garage? Chances are the answer is no. But if you’re worried about the air quality in your home, it’s worth giving more thought to the air quality in your garage.

The 7 Reasons: An Overview

Here are the 7 reasons to run an air purifier in your garage:

1. It’s Where We Store Our Vehicles – Cars release harmful gases like carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, which can build up and seep into your home.
2. It’s Where We Store Chemicals – The garage often holds chemicals for vehicle maintenance, lawn care, and other activities, leading to poor air quality.
3. It’s Usually the Main Access Point to Your Home – The garage door opens frequently, allowing pollutants from the garage to enter your home.
4. It’s Your Exercise Space – Breathing in poor air quality while exercising can impact your health, especially in a garage used as a gym.
5. It’s Where People Engage in Hobbies and Play – Hobbies like woodworking or painting, especially in a wood shop or hobby shop setup, can release dust and fumes that affect air quality in the garage.
6. It’s Where We Grill – Grilling indoors in the garage can produce carbon monoxide, which is dangerous to inhale.
7. It’s Where We Smoke – Smoking in the garage releases benzene, a harmful chemical that can affect your health.

Let’s take a deeper look at each of those reasons.

It’s Where We Store Our Vehicles

The primary purpose for the garage is obviously to store vehicles – and it’s nice on a rainy day not to have to unload the groceries outside. But our cars let off carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases like methane. They aren’t good for the environment, and they certainly aren’t good for you to breathe in for an extended period. It doesn’t take long for those dangerous gases to build up and seep inside. If your habit is to start the car before you open the garage door or keep it running after you’ve shut it, then you’re allowing enough time to let carbon monoxide build up and enter your home and your and your family’s lungs. 

It’s Where We Store Chemicals

Along with the car or truck, the garage is the place we store chemicals for our vehicle maintenance. You’ll also generally find the lawn care equipment and the gas to run them. With all the potential sources for airborne chemicals – you can understand why your garage may be the space with the most subpar air quality in your home. It can become an even more significant concern in the summer months. Higher and hotter temperatures help certain chemicals vaporize faster than usual, creating more inferior air quality.

Air purifiers with carbon filters work by having chemical fumes and VOCs drawn into the filtration media for removal.

It’s Usually the Main Access Point to Your Home

The only thing that separates your indoor living space and your attached garage is a single door. Think about how many times a day that door gets opened. We generally use the garage entry point as the primary way to go in and out of our house. We leave it open as we bring in shopping bags or get left open when children go out. 

But it doesn’t matter how long it stays open for the poor air quality from the garage to make its way inside. Sometimes, the way garage construction can contribute to the number of pollutants that enter your home. Homebuilders will often save you and yourself money during construction by not finishing out the walls or ceilings of the garage. Not having drywall up or leaving unfinished joints can increase the number of irritants that seep inside your home.

It’s Your Exercise Space

Lots of people use their garage as a personal gym. Maybe your treadmill or weights are situated between the car and your lawn care equipment. When we exercise, we breathe heavier, and our lungs need more oxygen to perform how we need them. If the air quality in your garage is poor, that means the air you’re taking in while you’re exercising isn’t any good either.

Using a HEPA filter in your garage air purifier can help reduce fine particles that may trigger asthma symptoms, making it safer for those with asthma or other respiratory issues.

It’s Where the Place for Hobbies and Play

Often, we use the garage as a play area. We pull out the car, and while we work in the garage or out in the yard, our kids use the space to play. After all, concrete garage floors are a great place to use sidewalk chalk.

It’s also commonplace for people to enjoy their hobbies – especially if your particular hobby requires a lot of space to perform—you can do things like woodworking and painting in the garage. Dust from the wood and fumes from the paint can also help to contribute to poor air quality in your garage. And playing and taking part in your favorite hobby can also mean you’re spending more time in the garage than you realize and, in effect, breathing in more potentially poor-quality air.

Portable air purifiers designed for table or tabletop use can provide convenient spot air purification during hobbies or play in the garage.

It’s Where We Grill

If you don’t have a deck or covered patio, storing the grill inside the garage seems like a logical idea to protect it from the elements. And if the weather is cold and you still want burgers, having the grill in the garage seems like the perfect solution. Using your grill inside can be tricky; you have to worry about making sure it’s away from flammable materials, so it doesn’t cause a fire. But charcoal and gas grills also produce carbon monoxide. And if you use the grill inside your garage with the door closed, it allows the gas to build up. Breathing in carbon monoxide is dangerous, but too much of it can kill you.

Most state and local construction codes require the builder to install a fire/smoke-rated wall between the garage and your house, which helps cut down on the carbon monoxide that enters your home. But it doesn’t stop it completely. An older home built before the codes were put in place won’t have that type of wall at all.

It’s Where We Smoke

Most people these days who smoke don’t do so inside their homes. They may go outside or, if the temperature is too cold, may use the garage as the place to light up. It seems like a courteous thing to your family to use the garage, but you may not realize what it does for the air quality in your garage and home. Smoking produces benzene which is a chemical with a sweet odor that causes a heavy vapor. According to the CDC breathing in too much of it can cause your cells not to work correctly. Benzene can keep your bone marrow from producing enough red blood cells for your body or damage your immune system causing you to lose white blood cells.

So, what can we do to improve the air quality in our garages? There are some simple things like leaving the main bay door open and letting the garage air out when you can. You can store gas and other chemicals in a detached shed. And regularly cleaning and decluttering the garage is helpful. But one of the best and most long-term solutions may be to invest in an air purifier for your garage.

Air purifiers pull air in, trap particles and irritants in the filter and send purified and cleaner air back out. The best air purifiers are ones that use a true HEPA filter. HEPA filters are known to trap more than 99 percent of all airborne particles. But if you’re installing one in your garage, you’ll want to look for one that also has carbon filtration, which catches fumes and odors. If you’re looking for an air purifier for the garage and don’t know where to start, we’ve researched for you – click here to see our best recommendations for an air purifier for your garage.

Air Purifier Placement in Your Garage

When it comes to improving the indoor environment of your garage, where you install your air purifier can make all the difference. The right placement ensures your unit can efficiently pull in air, capture dust, and remove odors and pollutants before they spread throughout your garage—or worse, into your home.

Start by identifying the main sources of pollutants in your garage. If you store your vehicle, chemicals, or tools in a particular area, consider placing the air purifier nearby, but not directly against a wall or in a corner. This allows the unit to draw in air from all directions, maximizing its ability to filter out dust and odors. For garages that double as a workshop or play area, position the air purifier close to where you spend the most time or where activities like woodworking or painting take place.

Make sure the air purifier isn’t blocked by large objects like boxes, shelves, or equipment. Obstructions can limit airflow and reduce the unit’s effectiveness. If your garage is large or has multiple rooms, you might benefit from a portable air purifier on casters, so you can move it to where it’s needed most. For smaller garages, a wall-mounted or ceiling-mounted unit can save floor space while still providing cleaner air.

Finally, remember to check and replace the filters regularly, especially if your garage produces a lot of dust or fumes. A well-placed and well-maintained air purifier will help create a healthier indoor environment, making your garage a safer and more pleasant space for all your activities.

Garages are often overlooked when it comes to air quality, but they can be one of the most polluted spaces in your home. From vehicle emissions and stored chemicals to grilling, smoking, and hobbies that generate dust and fumes, the garage is a hotspot for airborne contaminants. Since garages are commonly used for various activities and serve as a primary entry point to the home, poor air quality in this space can easily affect the rest of your living environment. While simple steps like ventilation and proper storage can help, investing in a high-quality air purifier with a HEPA and carbon filter is one of the most effective ways to ensure cleaner, safer air in your garage. Taking action now can protect your health and create a better indoor environment for you and your family.

There are many models of air purifiers available, each offering different options for filtration and installation. When you choose an air purifier for your garage, consider whether a MERV 15 filter or a HEPA filter makes more sense for your needs, as MERV 15 provides a good balance of filtration efficiency and cost, while HEPA offers higher filtration at a higher cost. The cost of filters and maintenance can vary, so factor in both initial and ongoing expenses. Washable electrostatic filter cells can have a long life—lasting 15 years or more with proper care—but keep in mind that their efficiency can decrease by 1 to 4% each week due to dust buildup. Some air purifier units can be installed in a box or enclosure within the wall, and the mounting structure doesn’t need to be fancy to be effective. Regular maintenance is important to ensure your system continues to control dust, odors, and VOCs efficiently, as air is drawn in and blown through the filtration media to provide cleaner air in your garage.

Conclusion

Garages are often overlooked when it comes to air quality, but they can be one of the most polluted spaces in your home. From vehicle emissions and stored chemicals to grilling, smoking, and hobbies that generate dust and fumes, the garage is a hotspot for airborne contaminants. Since garages are commonly used for various activities and serve as a primary entry point to the home, poor air quality in this space can easily affect the rest of your living environment. While simple steps like ventilation and proper storage can help, investing in a high-quality air purifier with a HEPA and carbon filter is one of the most effective ways to ensure cleaner, safer air in your garage. Taking action now can protect your health and create a better indoor environment for you and your family.