The Hub for Indoor Air Quality Tech & Trends
Smoke reached our monitors in central Kentucky from a fire we never saw. A plume drifted down the Ohio Valley last fall, the sky held a flat ordinary gray, and our kitchen sensor still climbed past 70 micrograms before noon. That’s the catch with wildfire smoke here. A Kentucky wildfire map shows you where the … Read more
The 16x25x1 came out of the air handler stuffed with three years of compacted dust against a cardboard frame so warped we had to peel it off the rack. MERV 8. The blower had been straining for months, and static pressure across the coil read 0.92 inches water column on the Dwyer manometer we keep … Read more
The filter box arrives, the homeowner slides it into the rack, and something doesn’t sit right. The new 24x25x5 sits loose in the housing, or the gasket won’t close, or the pleats bow at an angle no install will correct. That’s the most frequent failure we track on first-time Day and Night 24x25x5 MERV 11 … Read more
Most homeowners I talk to can tell me exactly where their furnace filter lives. Ask about the filters at each vent grille, and the conversation usually stalls. Those secondary filters show up in roughly two-thirds of the homes I inspect, and most of them are long overdue for a change. A vent-level filter catches dust, … Read more
Eight minutes of actual work solved a three-month energy mystery last January. I pulled a dust-caked furnace filter out of the slot, held it up to a bare light, and the answer was right there: the system had been starved of airflow the whole time while my bill climbed with no explanation from the unit … Read more
Last August, our team watched Reno’s AQI climb from 42 to 178 in under four hours as smoke from a Sierra Nevada fire crossed the state line. The window showed clear sky the entire time. That is the part most Nevada residents miss: by the time outdoor air looks bad, PM2.5 is already inside the … Read more
Most hardware stores don’t stock the 21.5x24x1 air filter. That’s the first problem pet owners in this size run into. Performance and price are straightforward to evaluate. Getting the filter in hand when you need it is not. We’ve reviewed air filtration setups across dozens of residential HVAC systems, including homes with multiple dogs, heavy-shedding … Read more
In the summer of 2023, wildfire smoke pushed Wisconsin AQI past 150 for multiple consecutive days. Millions of residents went about their outdoor routines without knowing. We tracked that event in real time, watching readings climb from the 40s to the 170s in a single afternoon, and the same pattern held both times: people were … Read more
A practical look at fit, filtration, and everyday use MY VERDICT AT A GLANCE I’ve looked at a lot of filter lines across many size categories, and the Filterbuy 14x18x1 holds up well for what it’s designed to do. The range of MERV options is genuinely useful — you’re not locked into one filtration level. … Read more
Check the number before you open a window. That’s it. One habit that changes what your family breathes every day. The live air quality index in Raleigh, NC doesn’t stay where it was at sunrise. Traffic builds on I-440 by 7 a.m., ozone chemistry kicks in once the sun hits the Triangle’s heat, and wildfire … Read more