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Air Filter: amzn.to/3c7ZR8p
Airmon PM2.5 Tester: amzn.to/2FuWsVr
These filters are expensive, so one of the questions I have is, do I need to change this Merv16 filter once a year like they recommend?
Right now I am at a perfect time to put this question to the test. My existing filter is one year old, and I have a new one ready to go and most importantly we have fires going in Colorado right now and the air quality outside is terrible, you can hardly see the mountains right now which is odd for us. Around 120 pm2.5. Also it is not windy at all, I will get why that is important later, I will also get to what type of house I live in and how many ACH air changes per hour has later.
I am not an expert on air quality, but since I live in the Denver air which is in the top 15 for worst air quality I would call myself slightly educated. If you have recommendations on how I can do this test better next year let me know.
OK my test idea is pretty simple, run my blower from the circulate I normally use to On all the time which will help speed up the test because any air that leaks from outside in will get filtered faster. I will let it run for 2 hours while keeping an eye on the outside pollution levels to make sure they don’t change. After that I will put in the new filter and run it for two hours and see if the new one filtered out more pm2.5 than the old one.
I will be using the sire purple air for outside measurement, it might not be the most accurate since the unit is about $300, but since there are so many more than the official government ones I think they give a much more overall look at the pollution levels.
Now for what I am using to monitor the inside is a bit weak, it only cost $35 but it uses Sharp lasers and I have tested it next to the government ones and it will spot on. However I notice it is usually lower in level than the purple air units, but since it is all relative, it should make for a good test.
Just to show you that it works here is a test next to my toster. And I will run it outside before I start
While the test is running let me tell you about my 25 year house. I had a blow door test done on it last year and 3,500’ 4 people, one cat, climate zone 5,
Blower Door Reading: 3645 CFM50 Equivalent ACH50: 5.9 ACH50 Conditioned Air Volume: 37082.13 ft3