My filter is getting crapped out
June 21, 2009 10:05 AM Subscribe
Is genuine best in with the Aprilaire Whole-Home Air Cleaner?I am having trouble sussing out what is best for our situation. I might just have a general air flow issue.
Our little old bungalow came with an Aprilaire Whole-Home Air Cleaner. I later realized that its basically just a filter with no electronic or moving parts of its own.
The Aprilaire site says that the media (fancy word for filter?) should last about a year, two if you don't make much detritus. It also says that it gets more efficient with time and there is no benefit from changing it more often.
HOWEVER, we started changing it twice a year and now even more often. We started using the filtrete replacement filters. Of COURSE, the Aprilaire peeps say that the non-genuine have less surface area, aren't as efficiect or long last, yadda, yadda, yadda.
The thing is, we have air flow issues, we can't get the house cool. We smoke, we sand, we do a ton of woodworking stuff, we have three dogs, and two cats...so of course the filter gets congested really quickly. We asked the air guy about putting filters on the returns, cheapies that we could vacuum or change regularly, but he indicated that would be a big strain on the system.
We only had one return for the whole house, but we had three big 12 inch ducts going to that one return. We took one of those down and created a hole for a new return in the living room which seemed to help for a week, but then it stopped being very efficient, so we changed the filter, but now the ducts have lots of drippy condesation!
Oh gracious, this is much longer than I meant it to be, perhaps we just need some freon, but we don't have any money to pay to have someone out right now.
Our little old bungalow came with an Aprilaire Whole-Home Air Cleaner. I later realized that its basically just a filter with no electronic or moving parts of its own.
The Aprilaire site says that the media (fancy word for filter?) should last about a year, two if you don't make much detritus. It also says that it gets more efficient with time and there is no benefit from changing it more often.
HOWEVER, we started changing it twice a year and now even more often. We started using the filtrete replacement filters. Of COURSE, the Aprilaire peeps say that the non-genuine have less surface area, aren't as efficiect or long last, yadda, yadda, yadda.
The thing is, we have air flow issues, we can't get the house cool. We smoke, we sand, we do a ton of woodworking stuff, we have three dogs, and two cats...so of course the filter gets congested really quickly. We asked the air guy about putting filters on the returns, cheapies that we could vacuum or change regularly, but he indicated that would be a big strain on the system.
We only had one return for the whole house, but we had three big 12 inch ducts going to that one return. We took one of those down and created a hole for a new return in the living room which seemed to help for a week, but then it stopped being very efficient, so we changed the filter, but now the ducts have lots of drippy condesation!
Oh gracious, this is much longer than I meant it to be, perhaps we just need some freon, but we don't have any money to pay to have someone out right now.
Response by poster: Doing heavy work indoors without a/c in the south is really not an option for us, redoing the house is a lifestyle with no discreet "we are working now" moments. We are always making some kind of crazy mess.
posted by stormygrey at 1:18 PM on June 21, 2009
posted by stormygrey at 1:18 PM on June 21, 2009
This thread is closed to new comments.
As far as I know, anything with ducts is supposed to be turned off during dust-creating activities (and painting) and only turned back on after the derbis has been swept up and blown out with fans.
Or are you saying the residual dust from projects (plus smoke, dog hair, etc) is causing the trouble?
posted by Lesser Shrew at 10:44 AM on June 21, 2009