Every and All Types of Furnace Filters – Benefits and Drawbacks

I want to discuss the main types of furnace filters. As with many, many other things in life, there are positives and negatives inherent with each type of air filter technology. You must assess what your needs and values are, and apply them to the information out there to make the best decision possible. For example, if you are allergic to pollen, and you live in a high pollen count area, you have a pretty strong value for air filters that can clear the air of allergy-inducing particles.

Regular furnace filters

These are the most common filters out there. They are easy to find. They are convenient. They are in most Target type stores and Home Depot type stores. They even appear in supermarkets often. They are disposable. However, in almost every aspect of filtration quality, they have less to brag about than other technologies.

Activated Carbon Furnace Filters

This has an extra layer inside, usually of the color black. Just the color you would expect carbon to be, right? It has claims of cleansing the air of trace amounts of certain types of chemicals in the air, so if your area is known for having poisonous or toxic chemicals in its air, this type of filter is definitely worth checking out.

Electrostatic Furnace Filters

Borrowing from the same family of technology used by the Sharper Image Ionic Breeze and the Oreck XL Air Purifier, these filters carry a static electric charge, and claims to deal with bad particles from the standpoint of physics, electricity to be exact. Although they are not powered up or shockingly dangerous in any way, they claim to attract oppositely-charged particles to the charged filter body, thereby cleaning your air better.

Pleated furnace filters

Strictly speaking, pleated is another aspect of a furnace filters perpendicular to its “type,” meaning the material used. Pleated refers to the accordion-like folds in the filter body that makes it look like a zigzag. This increases the total surface area of the filter, thereby allowing a higher volume of air to pass through than a flat filter.

HEPA

HEPA is a heavy-duty kind of furnace filters. Although the technology is sound, they have their drawbacks, too.

Ok, so I cannot be sure if I have covered every type of furnace filter, like the title of this article claims. Maybe they invented a new kind in Tibet that has not made the rounds in the Western world yet. But at least here in the United States, we’ve touched upon all the technologies that will filter all the undesirables from the air in your house or business.