Home Air filter?

[JoggingGuy]

My wife has asthma, so I've always been pretty punctual about keeping clean filters in the central air unit. I learned to write the date on the filter when I install them so I don't have to guess on the age

I've used the generic pleated filters (TrueBlue brand) with the cotton-looking element at Home Depot since we built the house 6 years ago. I've used the high end Filtretes that cost $15 each, and they do work very, very well as they say, but they are very pricey. It's cheaper to buy the generics in 3-packs and change them every month than to use the Filtretes for 3 months.

I recently cleaned the AC coil in the attic unit for the first time in 6 years. It was very clean and had almost no buildup on either the coil, air box, or output ducts. I cleaned it with bleach, then rinsed it a number of times with water. It mainly accumulated dirt where the coil sits on the pan and around the edges. So it really does pay to keep clean filters in there

 

[T-Keith]

On a similar note, I have a different problem with my house filter.

Because the furnace was relocated at some point, the air intake placement is less than ideal. It is located about 6" from the furnace. This makes it very loud, and being between out living room and the bedroom, it makes watching TV very hard. I'm currently using a normal fiberglass filter, although I haven't had the heat on in a while.

Would a paper filter make this quieter? Are there any other easy ways to quiet this thing down? Relocating the intake would be very hard as there aren't any other walls to put it on with acces to the area where the furnace is.

-T

 

[XS650]

quote:

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Originally posted by T-Keith:
It is located about 6" from the furnace. This makes it very loud, and being between out living room and the bedroom, it makes watching TV very hard. ....

Would a paper filter make this quieter? Are there any other easy ways to quiet this thing down? .....

-T

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I had a simillar setup in my last house.

You don't have much space to work in and most things you could do at the intake to quiet it would add restriction, which furnaces don't like. It makes them make more noise too

A decent paper filter would be worth a try. Stay with low restriction filters.

What is the hall floor like? If it isn't carpeted, adding carpet will make a big difference. It did in mine. I went from vinyl flooring to wall to wall carpet in the hall. It was a definite sound reduction.

I also tried hanging some carpet on the wall across from the intake. That helped too, but I didn't mount it permanatly because it was good enough with the carpet on the floor. I think it was about a 6 foot by 6 foot piece of heavy carpeting that I tried on the wall. It helped, even with the floor already carpeted. It prevented most of the sound from the intake being reflected by the wall opposite the intake.

 

[T-Keith]

Hmmm. There is carpet in the room, but it's in the living room, so no close opposing wall. We have a small pine bench in front of it, and I've tryed various distances from the wall, even removing it, but it doesn't seem to help.

This thing is loud, like a blender, you have to turn the TV up alot or just miss that part.

-T

 

[brianl703]

quote:

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Originally posted by T-Keith:
This thing is loud, like a blender, you have to turn the TV up alot or just miss that part.

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Do you have any dampers on it? A damper that isn't fully open will make the furnace noisier. Dampers are normally used when there are two trunk ducts. Two trunk ducts are normally used when you have 3 levels.

 

[XS650]

quote:

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Originally posted by T-Keith:
Hmmm. There is carpet in the room, but it's in the living room, so no close opposing wall. We have a small pine bench in front of it, and I've tryed various distances from the wall, even removing it, but it doesn't seem to help.

This thing is loud, like a blender, you have to turn the TV up alot or just miss that part.

-T

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After you check for restrictions (brianl's post), check airflow.

The furnace and AC should increase or decrease the air temperature a certain amount as the air runs thought them.

I'm not sure about furnaces, but ACs are normally expected to cool the air about 15F to 20F as is goes from the intake to the nearest outlet. You should be able to verify those numbers and get a good heater number on some HVAC web site.

If your temp drop or increase is too small, that usually means you are moving too much air through your system. If that's the case, you may be able to slow your blower down and get a significant noise reduction. If the temp increase/decrease is too big, that means the air flow is low and you shouldn't slow the blower down.

Unfortunately, most home systems flow too little air instead of too much, but it's still worth a check.

 

[jamesn]

i know that this is an old post but i have my own $.02 on this one. i am a former hvac service tech. if your furnace and a/c were installed at the same time they SHOULD be a matched set. they will be of the proper size to work together. the problem that you run into on most of the cheaper units and a few of the expensive ones is that the blower fan is cheaply made. a cheap one is noisy at any speed. you do not want to switch the leads on the fan motor to get it to run at a lower speed. that may make it quieter but at a large cost in efficency in heating and it will probably cause your a/c to freeze into a block of ice in certain temperature/demand situations in the summer. spend 40 bucks on a good blower fan and be done with it.

 

[jamesn]

hi. HVAC service tech here. the quietest blower fans i have been able to regularly get are made by a company called dynagen. they are great. not cheap at 60 a pop (my price) but worth it in the long run. get yourself an air bear filter and run a good cheap paper element in front of it in the airflow to get all of the big crap first. change it every month and the airbear every 8 months or so.