12,000 litres. That is how much air you breathe every single day.
90% of it indoors. Indoor air is typically 2–5× more polluted than the air outside. Here is what is in it.
In brief
- You breathe 12,000 litres of air every day, about 4,000 times more than the water you drink. Most of it enters your lungs completely unfiltered.
- Indoor air is typically 2–5× more polluted than outdoor air, not less. Source: US EPA, ISHRAE.
- Gas cooking spikes kitchen PM2.5 to 200–500 µg/m³ within 15 minutes. WHO's safe 24 hour limit is 15 µg/m³.
- A sealed AC room recirculates all of it: cooking particles, VOCs, mould, outdoor infiltration, hour after hour with no dilution.
- India's conditions (gas cooking, monsoon humidity, high outdoor AQI) make this significantly worse than the global averages this data is usually cited for.
90% of your time
Spent indoors: home, office, car. That is where your air quality is decided.
2–5× worse than outdoor air
Indoor air is typically several times more polluted than the air outside. Source: US EPA, ISHRAE.
15 µg/m³: the WHO safe limit
A kitchen during cooking can hit 200 to 500 µg/m³. That is more than ten times the WHO 24 hour guideline.
We obsess over water. We ignore air.
You probably filter your drinking water, check the brand, maybe even test it. You consume 2 to 3 litres of it a day. You inhale 12,000 litres of air. Most of it unfiltered.
Water: 2 to 3 litres a day
Filtered, bottled or boiled. Most Indian households actively treat it. You think about what goes in.
Air: 12,000 litres a day
Unfiltered in most homes. Recirculated through the AC. No treatment, no check, just breathed every hour of every day.
4,000 times more air than water. Yet we install RO filters, buy bottled water and think twice before drinking tap water, while breathing the same indoor air for 8 to 10 hours in a sealed room without a second thought.
What is actually in your air
Some of it is generated inside your home. Some of it infiltrates from outside, through windows, vents and gaps, no matter how sealed the room feels.
Cooking (indoor)
Gas stoves spike kitchen PM2.5 to 200–500 µg/m³ in 15 minutes. WHO 24 hour limit: 15 µg/m³.
Traffic and construction (outdoor)
Diesel PM2.5 infiltrates through windows, AC vents and gaps throughout the day.
Cleaning products (indoor)
Floor cleaners and sprays release VOCs that react with indoor ozone to form formaldehyde.
Seasonal burning (outdoor)
Crop burning, Diwali fireworks and garbage fires push PM2.5 spikes that penetrate rapidly through any air gap.
Furniture and paint (indoor)
New furniture and flooring off-gas formaldehyde and VOCs for months after installation.
Industrial fallout (outdoor)
Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Hyderabad: significant industrial PM2.5 drifts over residential zones daily.
Pets and people (indoor)
Dander, skin flakes and hair are continuous PM2.5 sources. Homes with pets run measurably higher particle counts.
Pollen (outdoor)
India's year-round flowering means pollen infiltration is not seasonal, it is constant.
Mould spores (indoor)
Humidity creates mould in AC units and walls. Spores circulate invisibly year-round.
Dust mites (indoor)
Live in mattresses and sofas. Their droppings cause indoor allergies and childhood asthma. No cleaning eliminates them.
Your day in indoor air
6 to 7 AM: bedroom at its worst
Eight hours of CO2 buildup, dust mite activity, zero ventilation. Your first breaths of the day.
7 to 9 AM: cooking peak
PM2.5 spikes to 200–500 µg/m³ in the kitchen during breakfast prep on a gas stove.
9 AM to 6 PM: AC sealed loop
Whatever enters the air stays in the air. Cooking residue, VOCs and outdoor infiltration all keep recirculating.
10 PM to 6 AM: eight hours in bedroom air
The longest single indoor exposure of your day. Where a purifier makes the most measurable difference.
The India-specific problem
Gas cooking, monsoon humidity and high outdoor AQI combine to make an Indian home's indoor air significantly worse than the global averages this data is usually cited for. An IIT Delhi study on cooking pollution found kitchen PM2.5 spiking well above safe limits during normal daily cooking.
Sources: US EPA; WHO Global Air Quality Guidelines 2021; ISHRAE India IAQ Standards; IIT Delhi PM2.5 cooking studies.
Common assumptions, and the reality
Isn't outdoor air the real problem?
Outdoor pollution matters, but indoor air is typically 2 to 5 times more polluted than the air outside (source: US EPA, ISHRAE). Cooking, cleaning products, furniture off-gassing and mould all add to what infiltrates from outside, and a sealed room has nowhere for it to go.
My AC keeps the room sealed, so the air should stay clean, right?
A sealed room keeps pollution in as effectively as it keeps it out. Most split ACs recirculate the same indoor air with no fresh exchange, so cooking particles, VOCs, mould spores and outdoor infiltration just keep cycling through the room, hour after hour.
You cannot control the air outside. You can control this.
KyoAir Vortex is engineered for Indian PM2.5, cooking pollution, humidity and outdoor infiltration, so the 12,000 litres you breathe every day get filtered, not just recirculated.