Not All Air Filters are Created Equal!
The first and most important thing to know about Air Filtration is that the “standard” air filter (ie: the paper accordion catridge on your furnace or AC unit) only catches a tiny, tiny percentage (less than 3 percent!) of the lint and other matter that gets sucked into your system, and does very little to stop smaller particulate matter such as allergens, dander, pollens, and the other organisms that lead to health problems. Furthermore, the simple standard accordions have far less surface area than dedicated air filtration systems, and clog far quicker, leading to greatly reduced efficiency and increased heating costs for your Portland, Oregon home.
Electronic, or Electrostatic, Air Filters use a combination of mechanical air filtration and static electricity or electrostatic charge to capture particles before they can zip into the system. Electronic filters also have an even better effiency rating than media filters because they do not obstruct air flow: whereas a media filetr requires the air to flow through the fine “mesh” of the filter catridge, Electrostatic air filters remove a very high percentage of contaminants from the air but at the same time have little effect on air flow because there is no physical barrier to air flow. Electronic air filters from Honeywell and Aprilaire are both affordable and highly-effective choices for Portland, Oregon home air filtration.
“Media” air filters get their name from the physical catridge that does the dirty work: HVAC contractors refer to the cartidge itself as the “media” that goes into the unit to make it work, so Media Air Filters are any unit that uses a physical cartidge to clean your air. Technically, the simple 1-inch paper accordion is a media cartidge, but not all cartidges are equal! Better materials and advanced designs, both of the cartidge and of the airflow through the larger unit itself, lead to vastly improved efficiency and cleaner air. For example, the Honeywell F100 Media Air Filter removes 40x as much matter (down to 0.3 microns!), and has an airflow rating vastly greater than a standard filter.
