Clear Advice for Cleaner Air
A $3,000 attic insulation removal that balloons to $9,000 after the contractor finds mold, vermiculite, and buried junction boxes. We’ve heard that story from FilterClarity.com readers more times than we can count. The baseline estimate looked right at $1 to $2 per square foot. Then the actual attic told a different story. Most attic insulation … Read more
Tucson’s Air Quality Index can go from “Good” to “Unhealthy” in under an hour. We track air quality data across the Southwest at FilterClarity.com, and no city in our coverage area shifts that fast when a haboob pushes through or wildfire smoke drifts down from the surrounding forests. Three seasonal forces drive Tucson’s AQI: monsoon … Read more
Check your Jacksonville AQI right now and you’ll see a number that has a direct line to what you’re breathing inside your home — but almost nobody treats it that way. Most residents check the weather before heading out. Few check the air quality. We think that’s worth changing. The EPA has found that indoor … Read more
I get some version of this question every week: “Should I be using a MERV 13 filter?” It comes from homeowners who are tired of sneezing, frustrated with dusty surfaces, or just trying to do right by their HVAC system. My honest answer is: it depends. And that’s exactly what I want to walk you … Read more
If you live in Montana, you already know the air can turn on you fast. What looks like a pristine blue-sky morning can become a hazy, smoke-filled afternoon by the time wildfire season hits its stride. At FilterClarity.com, we’ve analyzed Montana’s seasonal air quality patterns and found something most general guides miss: winter can be … Read more
Arizona’s air can turn dangerous before you ever smell it. We’ve monitored air quality patterns across the state long enough to know this: most Arizona households aren’t filtering for the conditions they actually live in. Wildfire smoke from the Mogollon Rim, haboob-driven PM10 surges across the Valley, and summer ozone inversions in Phoenix each carry … Read more
What This Guide Covers and Who It’s For If you use a 16x20x1 air filter in your HVAC system, you’ve probably run into at least one of these situations: the new filter feels slightly loose in the slot, you’re not sure which MERV rating your system can handle, or you’re wondering whether you’re replacing it … Read more
Most homeowners assume their air filter handles whatever floats through their vents — dust, pollen, germs alike. It doesn’t. Through hands-on filter testing and analysis of real-world airborne contaminant data, we’ve found that bacteria and viruses behave very differently inside a home air system — and that difference determines whether your filter is actually protecting … Read more
Pleated air filters get blamed for everything from frozen coils to sky-high energy bills — but in our experience at FilterClarity.com, most of those claims don’t hold up. We’ve spent years testing pleated filters across different MERV ratings and system types, and the same handful of myths keep circulating in forums, comment sections, and even … Read more
If you’re buying 23.5x25x2 pleated HVAC air filters one at a time, you’re likely overpaying. Based on our research at FilterClarity.com, most households go through four to six filters per year, and bulk orders of that size can cut your per-filter cost by 15% to 25%. But there’s a catch. Buy too many and they … Read more