Air Filters: What Do You Want Yours to Do?
Ever feel overwhelmed at the prospect of choosing an air filter for your HVAC system? Fortunately, the Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value (MERV) provides a small, yet important glimpse into the world of effective air filtration.
Rated from a scale of 1 to 16 for standard air filters and 17 to 20 for HEPA filters, MERV measures an air filter’s ability to efficiently capture airborne particles and other pollutants. With these ratings, you can choose the right filter for your HVAC application:
1 - 4 MERV: Provide affordable and disposable filtration for residential applications, capturing up to 80 percent of pollen, dust mites and other particles greater than 10 microns in size.
5 - 8 MERV: Ideal for both residential and industrial use, these filters capture over 90 percent of airborne particles ranging from 3 to 10 microns in size. These particles include mold spores, cement dust and pollutants from dusting aids and hair spray.
9-12 MERV: Offer superior residential filtration, capturing over 95 percent of airborne pollutants as small as 1 micron in size, including Legionella bacteria, vehicle emissions and dust from humidifiers.
13-16 MERV: Commonly used in “clean room” environments, including hospitals. These filters trap over 98 percent of pollutants, including all types of bacteria, most tobacco smoke and other particles ranging from 0.3 to 1 micron.
17-20 MERV: Reserved for HEPA filters in order to signify their superior filtration properties. These filters can capture over 99.997 percent of airborne particles less than 0.3 microns.
High-MERV filters often require higher performance fan motors or specialized ductwork to make up for airflow issues. Air filters rated at MERV 7 to 13 offer similar performance to HEPA filters without the need for stronger fans or reworked ducts. Be sure to check these filters monthly, as they get clogged more easily.Remember, not all air filters are measured the same, therefore, it's best to buy from reputable sources who understand how this affects the system performance, not just because it's made by a large company.
At Air Assurance, we make it our business to take care of your home comfort needs and we've done the testing on filtration so that we know what kind of filtration works best with your system. We have even had our filters specially made to our specifications so that you know there the best. Contact us to learn more about air filters and your filtration options in the Broken Arrow area.
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Our goal is to help educate our customers in the Tulsa and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma area about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).
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