Who makes the best air filters for the home?

Just don't use a MERV level above what is recommended by your HVAC manufacturer.

The $5 cheapest home Depot one available. Mine does have secondary filters but they stay pretty clean. Don't want to restrict the AC with thick merv rated filters. I have separate hepa filters for filtration. I'm trying to stay as cool as possible in the summer.

Flanders HVAC filters and Aprilaire filters seem to have the best reputation among HVAC techs on the professional HVAC forums I follow. I use Flanders E-Z flow filters; Flanders make lower MERV fiberglass spun filterglass media & higher MERV pleated filters. Aprilaire filters probably have the best reputation but they are 4 inches thick require a special filter housing, i.e., they don’t fit the common ceiling grill return air grill that accommodates 1 inch thick filters. I will say that the box store Filtrete pleated filters don’t have a good reputation among many HVAC techs because of their restrictive air flow.

I would suggest that that if you using the 1 inch thick filters that you stick with lower MERV fiberglass spun filter, like MERV 4, so as to minimize return air flow restriction to the evaporator coil - restrictive air flow in time can shorten the operational life of the HVAC. Change the cheap MERV 4 filter monthly during cooling season. If the filter grill can accommodate a thicker 4 inch filter then a higher MERV 13 pleated filter is perfectly fine.

The thing to remember is the purpose of the air filter as far the HVAC designers are concerned is to protect the HVAC equipment, not to improve indoor air quality (IAQ) for the occupants.

I used a little cheap one month filters. Buy them by the dozen and just change them out every month

Can you unit handle a Merv 12?

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I will say that the box store Filtrete pleated filters don’t have a good reputation

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Any suspicion that this is driven by wives, "but muh allergies, MERV97 is the only thing good enough for muh babies!"

I use filterbuy.com

Buy 6 at a time and replace every two months.

Delivered to my house.

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Can you unit handle a Merv 12?

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Thank you for pointing that out to me. I can say with 100% honesty that I've never even looked at the "merv" rating or whatever that is until you pointed it out. I've always just looked for a filter that filters allergens since I and my kids have bad allergies. Now I see that I've apparently been potentially hurting my unit.

All the issues I've been having with it short-cycling and my HVAC guy never once thought to bring up the type of filter I'm using.



Edit: apparently my unit is equipped to handle a MERV 12 filter. Learned something new today -- that there's a lot about fricking HVAC filters I don't know.