For the first time in 53 years of owning homes, my new house has a furnace and uses filters. It takes a 1" filter.
I see prices can vary considerably but is a MERV 8 and MERV 8 regardless of the brand? Should I use MERV 8 or MERV 11? We have no pets.
I see filters with MERV 11 rating from $9.95 ($7.45ea by a dozen) to $14.50. Any real difference if they have the same rating?
Discount filters seems cheapest.
Speaking only for myself, I'd use what is said by the home builder. Try to keep the warranty?
I use air filters and had never heard the term MERV so looked up your question:
As long as you replace frequently(max 30 days) my AC guy sez it doesn't matter much. Just keep em clean
I like to find a good deal - and buy 2 - 3 years worth. My filters are 20 x 20 x 1 and I try to change them every
5 weeks ~ 4 or 5 filters per year <no summer A/C >Similar no-name are available for $ 15.
A piece of green painters tape applied to the filter edge with the install date marked is a handy reminder.
John T.
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Absolutely nothing to do with warranty.
My rule of thumb is never buy the cheapest or the most expensive. Go with a known brand name. See what your furnace guy supplies - you can likely source exactly the same filter for less than he charges - Home Despot, Lowes, Cpstco, etc,
I have a washable electrostatic (passive) filter that I wash out every couple of months since the cats died (every month when we had the 2)
Amazon has Aerostar MERV13 filters, 4 for $34. I'll try them. They are allegedly equal to the top name brands. Furnace Air Filter Comparable to 3M Filtrete MPR 1500 to 1900 Ultimate Allergen Defense Comparable to Honeywell Allergen Elite FPR 10
This is what I use:
Trouble is, they don't have efficiency rating on air flow drag.
Greg
Homebuilders don't know or care about furnace air filters. Most can't even hire an HVAC company to do the job right.
Why would anyone in a typical house replace a filter every 30 days? Once a season, tops for me. I frequently go a couple seasons because they are not dirty. If you live in a house with a bunch of pets and/or other issues, even then I can't see 30 days.
Merv 13 vs 11, if the price is about the same, I'd get the better one. But you also have to look at flow rate and be sure the higher efficiency doesn't restrict the air flow too much. The higher Merv filters are 4" thick with deep pleats, to increase surface area to keep pressure drop acceptable.
What's a typical house? I live in a 1948 masonry structure partially on a crawl space and partially on a basement. The cold air returns are set into the floors. My husband has asthma. We have two furnace filters: a prefilter and a big pleated paper filter. We change the prefilter every month (and it is dirty), and the paper filter twice a year.
Cindy Hamilton
I'm going to see how it looks after 90 days. Of course, filter makers suggest that time so they sell you a filter 4 times a year.
The 4" makes sense, but there is only room for a 1" so I'll go with that.
Cold air returns in the floor are not typical.
My first house, built in 1948 had a gravity feed furnace. No blower, no filters, returns in the wall but at floor level. Actually worked well. Could not be adapted to add AC though.
Nor atypical, particularly in retrofitted older homes. Cold air returns at floor level on a wall are also not atypical, even in newer homes (as that's where the cold air is during heating season).
You're not wrong. We put them in the floor because the original ones in the wall used to wash down over the concrete block foundation. Warm house air over cold block = mold.
Cindy Hamilton
I can understand that. As my house has a heat pump I guess that being several feet off the floor is a good compromise for the air return. All the outputs are at the floor level. Just an easy way to put them I guess.
Floor level outlets are common for heat. Some houses would have a floor level damper that was open for heat, then closed for the AC and a register near the ceiling was opened for AC.
My new house has the vents in the ceiling but it is mostly the AC as we use little heat in Florida. I also have ceiling fans in most rooms too.
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