Air Conditioner Filters
by Bobbie
Do not underestimate how much your air conditioner filters can impact your quality of life. People often believe air conditioning just means cooling their air; in fact, the air conditioner unit is processing their air in a detailed fashion, and your maintenance and filtering of that unit can significantly impact the health and well-being of your loved ones or your co-workers and yourself. Poor filtration can exacerbate frustrating health conditions such as allergies and asthma.
With this site we’ll try to both educate you on the air conditioning process so you can make informed decisions on your own and provide you some suggestions on which air conditioning filters to buy and where to buy them for the best price.
As allergies have increased along with health awareness, air conditioning filters have become far more prevalent and diverse. You’ll now find specialized HEPA air cleaners and HEPA filters (high efficiency particulate air), pleated air filters, elaborate electronic filters and electrostatic air filters. These air conditioner filters are usually installed within ceilings, walls, air conditioning units and furnaces.
Standard Air Conditioning Filters
Your basic standard air filter, a non-pleated device, removes about ten percent airborne particles and pollutants. They usually consist of a cardboard frame containing the spun fiberglass filter. If you’re relying on this old fashioned air conditioning filter, you really should change it at least once every month.
Pleated Air Conditioner Filters
A step up from the standard air filters is the pleated air filter. Pleated air filters capture about 30 to 40 percent of pollutants and particles in your environment’s air. Because they are pleated — folded much in the way a paper fan would be folded — to create a greater filtering surface area per square foot, these air conditioner filters will last a good while longer. I would say 2 or 3 months depending on your environment, but most manufacturers will claim a lifespan of 2 to 4 months for pleated filters.
While pleated filters cost a touch more than standard filers, over the course of the year you may actually save money if you’re changing your filters properly because pleated filters need to be changed less often than standard air filters.
Electrostatic Air Filters
A significant step up from the pleated air conditioner filters are the electrostatic filters. These air conditioning filters utilize filter media. The media leverage an electric charge to draw dirt particle from the air into the filter. Some electrostatic filters come with charged filter surfaces while other clever devices create their own electric charge with the way air moves through them. You usually must change an electrostatic air filter one time every year.
As health awareness improves and the attention paid to healthy breathing increases, another more advanced kind of air conditioning filter has become more and more common: electronic air conditioner filters.
Electronic Air Conditioner Filters
Electronic air filters function on the same basic concept as electrostatic filters, but they are far more efficient, both in the percentage of pollutants captured and in their long-term durability. Whereas a basic electrostatic filter can reduce air flow in the air conditioning system, an electronic air filter is designed to remove the particles without hindering air flow.
You’ll find two primary kinds of electronic air filters, charged media filters and electrostatic precipitators. In charged media filters, pollutants and particles will collect upon charged fibers. In electrostatic precipitators, pollutants and particles will be captured on charged plates.
In most cases, the electrostatic precipitator filters are the most efficient electronic air conditioner filters. This is because most electrostatic precipitators ionize (charge) the pollutants and particles early in the capture process, providing much improved particle capture efficiency. How much do they typically charge the air? In most cases, about 20 thousands volts will do the trick.
Electronic filters must be cleaned once a moth to maintain consistently good air quality.
Measuring Electronic Air Filter Efficiency
You’ll find two different tests for measuring the effectiveness of electronic air filters. The weight arrestance test simply measures the weight of the particles and pollutants captured in the filter. To measure smaller particulates which might be breathed into our lungs, however, we need to utilize an atmospheric dust spot test. The atmospheric dust-spot test measures an electronic filter’s capacity to collect particulate within 0.3 and six microns.
When considering your air conditioner filter, be sure to identify its MERV (minimum efficiency reporting value). This is a rating system from one to sixteen which represents an air conditioning filter’s efficiency. A higher MERV rating indicates a more efficient air filtering process. In the lower range of the rating, you might find a basic fiberglass panel with a MERV of about four or five. At the higher end of the MERV rating, you’ll find MERV 14 or 15 filters used in health-critical environments such as hospitals (to limit infectious disease and bacteria).
You might research the common particles and pollutants in your environment when selecting a MERV rating for your air conditioning filter. Common pollutants and particulates requiring filtering include pet dander, pollen, mold and mold spores, lint and household dust. These usually require a filter with a MERV rating around 9 or higher.
Another rating test is the Microparticle Performance Rating (MPR). This test originates from the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). It is specifically designed to measure a filter’s capacity to capture a range of particles over a measure period of time.
In particular, 3M’s Fitrete’s filters utilize this measurement extensively to delineate their different models of air filters.
I hope this helps you grasp the main points you need to know as you select the appropriate air conditioner filters for your environment.