Shoutout to the guy at Kennesaw Hardware who talked me out of a bad furnace filter

I was about to buy a cheap fiberglass filter for my HVAC last week, but the older guy behind the counter at Kennesaw Ace Hardware stopped me. He explained how those 1-inch fiberglass ones let too much dust through and wreck your blower motor over time. He pointed me to a MERV 8 pleated filter instead for $12, and after a week my air handler is running way quieter.

2 comments

2 Comments

michael88017d ago

Man, good on that guy for actually saving you from a mistake. Those cheap fiberglass filters are basically just for keeping bugs out of the return vent, not protecting your equipment. I swapped to a MERV 8 a couple years ago and my electric bill actually dropped a little since the unit wasn't fighting to pull air through a dirty filter.

gracecarr16d ago

I get what you're saying about the MERV 8 helping with efficiency, but I gotta push back a little on the fiberglass filter hate lol. Those cheap ones actually have their place, especially if you have an older system with a blower motor that can't handle much resistance. I learned that the hard way when I put a MERV 11 in my grandma's 20 year old unit and it froze up the coil because the airflow was choked way down. Some HVAC guys swear by those basic filters for certain setups, and they're not just for bugs. My buddy runs a MERV 8 too and it works great for him, but I think a lot depends on what your specific unit can handle without struggling.