Furnace/ac filter

[epdeans]

What type of furnace/ac filters do you use?

I change my filters often ( 2 months) and they are quite dirty and they are 3 month filters. Of course I want to use the most earth/family friendly filter possible.

Any ideas?
Elizabeth

[mavery]

Have you had the ducts cleaned? If the filters are very dirty, you might either need that or have dust and dirt getting in from outside. If the filters are getting very dirty, they're doing their job!

If you don't want to keep buying replacement filters, you can get an electrostatic filter unit installed, but they're a couple of thousand.

We just use the 3M microfiltrete whatever filters.

[Meiri]

We go with the 3M most of the time too, and change them monthly, most of the time. This house generates dust! And we did have the ductwork cleaned back when we got the new furnace and a/c a few years ago.

[Valkyrie9]

I was pleased to note that a couple of our filters are made from a blue, plasticky-looking mesh thing that I can just rinse out in the sink, dry and put back in. Our other two filters are the regular fabric/light wire/cardboard type, and we replace them every 3 months. I think the best you can do is just squash them down as much as possible to leave a smaller amount of trash space. But you might see if you can find the blue kind at your home improvement store--I think it is cut-to-fit.

[CarrieMF]

We use 2. 1 is a horsehair filter that was in the furnace when we bought the house. It gets washed out twice a year(at the beginning & end of furnace season). Then we use a disposable filter with it. I think dh puts that ontop of the horsehair one to ask as first defence. I don't know the brand of the disposable one. We have to use ones that will bend because the filter spot curves up. It is the only one that doesn't have the cardboard edging.

[gracefulhome]

We just had a furnace check/cleaning in our house two weeks ago and the guy told me that using the expensive filters that are supposed to trap more allergans are not actually better.

If you cannot see through the filter when you buy it, then it is blocking the airflow, causing the furnace to have to work a lot harder and dust will blow back thru the heat vetns becasue it is sitting on top, I guess that would be the outside, of the filter (not sure I am explaining that part ) . He said the 99 cent ones work the best. Believe it or not, I could tell a difference in the amount of heat coming out of the vents immediately after he took out my $10. filter and put in his 99 cent one! You will save on your energy bill too.

[Meiri]

If you can see through it, it's not trapping diddley squat. The point is to limit the amount of dust being blown through the house, not let it all go through. There's a balance between making the furnace fan work a bit harder and breathing dust.

We had a small car vacuum that had a "filter" I could see though. I could see the dust blowing back out of it too. Fat lot of good that "filter" was doing.