The most common way to clean the air circulating through a home and remove particles of contamination is with mechanical air filters. These filters do not require any outside power source; instead, they trap pollutants that attempt to move through them within a fiber mesh. An installer integrates the filter into your HVAC system so that all the air circulating through the ventilation ducts must at some point pass through the filter.
Selecting a filter
There are many types of filters made of different media to trap particles. Some are more effective at trapping smaller pollutants than others. A rating system called MERV (Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value) is used to denote how well a filter stop contaminants. The higher the MERV rating, the smaller particles the filter traps.
However, it is a serious mistake to simply pick the highest MERV rating you can find and have it installed into your HVAC system. A high MERV rating will place air flow restrictions against the heating and air conditioning. This will make your home’s comfort system very expensive to run and will result in a drop in heating and cooling levels. These high MERV filters are designed for the much more powerful fan systems found in commercial buildings. The ideal filter is balanced somewhere in the middle of the MERV scale.
The best way to pick a filter for your home is to allow an indoor air quality professional to do the work. The technician will determine what kinds of pollutants are currently in your air and what kind of filter will stop them—without impairing your HVAC system’s performance. The IAQ professional will also be able to tell if you should pair the filter with a type of electronic air purifier to target the smallest pollutants that will make it through the filter.
Call on Kool Breeze of Northwest Florida, Inc. in Navarre, FL to have quality air filtration installed in your home.