Thank you for clarifying. I
Thank you for clarifying. I had a feeling the ones showing up below after you mentioned them, weren’t the ones you wanted to connect with your information.
Now that I’m reading more of the comments here common I’m thinking of Putting efforts in a good air purifier.
If anyone can help with good choices of models I would appreciate it. I’m getting ads for them now that I am searching… so far the certified Bissell 320, the REME Halo (which fits on your existing furnace or air system, also whole home air purification services.
This is only my 1st couple of days exploring the stuff because of the smoke from wildfires but I will try and look through your threads or blog to find my own information on purifiers if you have them.

Penny,

Penny,

No, the articles you named aren’t the follow-up articles I wrote in this series.  Here they are:

The Unintended Consequences of High-MERV Filters

Do High-MERV Filters Always Reduce Air Flow?

The Path to Low Pressure Drop Across a High-MERV Filter

How Often Should You Change the HVAC Filter?

And here are the filter articles I’ve written in 2020:

Can You Use HVAC Filters in Coronavirus Masks?

Can Your HVAC System Filter Out Coronavirus?

Understanding Filter Ratings:  MERV, FPR, and MPR

My Low Pressure-Drop, MERV-13 Filters

I’ve quoted the articles that show up below. Are these them?

” Related Articles

This Thermostat Setting Can Cost You Money and Make You Sick

A Few of My Favorite Filter Photos

Asthma and Poor Indoor Air Quality — The Trouble with Homes

Which Indoor Air Pollutants Matter Most?”

Take electrical, for example, many electricians hired to wire home hobby shops, because the owner recognizes his or her limited knowledge and ability, are more than happy to wire outlets with fourteen gauge wire, because that is all code requires in many places.

An expert who cares about his customer would know the customer needs 12 gauge for the extra five amps it can carry for tools and equipment.

Though I’m not an HVAC guy, I always went by the “I’m the expert and it’s up to me to educate my customers, as to what’s best for them, what their options are any why some options are better than others” approach.

Sadly, many so called pro’s know just enough to do the least required of them.

We don’t have to try to give customers enough information to make them our equals, but we can explain enough to plant valuable seeds [of thought] to help them help themselves in making decisions.

To the end of helping customers know they have options, it might be worthwhile to make a simple brochure explaining things like manometers and Magnehelic Differential Pressure Gauges, increasing air flow via pleated filters, pitfalls of higher MERV rating filters and so on.

From my experience, customers remember those who educated them. Even if the education could make you replaceable, they still wanted you to do the work, because you did take the time to educate them.

There are often recommendations for dealing with the Covid virus that suggest, “increase ventilation”. Unfortunately for many of our customers they don’t know how to apply that suggestion since they are not real clear what ventilation is.

To clarify. Ventilation is outside air entering the space. THINK OUTSIDE!

Circulation on the other hand is moving air around within the space. THINK A FAN

So we want ventilation. We want to move air from outside into the space. There are standard and simple ways to move outside air into the space. 1) Open up windows. 2) Turn on bath and kitchen exhaust fans – moving air out of the house means outside air comes in to replace it. 3) Install and operate a window fan that helps make windows more effective. 4) There are more sophisticated systems that intentionally move outside air into and out of the house, often with heat exchangers between the two airflows.

OK so what about our customers ceiling fans, air conditioners, floor fans, furnace fans? These devices circulate indoor air, they do not dilute the concentration of the pollutant (the Covid virus). So, why do people use them? Because they make us feel cooler. Air moving across out skin causes evaporation, which makes us feel cooler.

Outside air is what we want to dilute the viral load in the building space. Sometimes customers do not have enough ways of obtaining adequate ventilation and we have to supplement the ventilation with Filtration. Filtration is definitely a second tier response to the problem. But not just any filter. HEPA or MERV 13 or higher.

Please note that these “high efficiency” filters are better at removing particulates, but they are also much more restrictive to airflow. To compensate for that we need to add additional return filter grills and revise the existing ones to accept 4” to 5” deep filters.

As an aside, my mother is a schoolteacher and began school this week. They were told the schools had been updated with “hospital grade filters,” which sounded very comforting to all of us ignorants since teachers there have scant-to-none PPE for their rooms. I pressed her to inquire further of the custodian, who told her they would be “upgrading hopefully soon” to a MERV 10. Ironically, the kids aren’t allowed outside for recess right now due to bad air quality.