Your air filter in your air conditioning system is one of the most critical parts of the system. It is what helps your AC system work properly and also helps to keep your air in your home clean. The indoor air quality of your home is one of the top health concerns of the EPA. By changing out your air filter regularly, you can help keep the air pollution in you home down and make it easier to breathe. There are a lot of factors to consider when choosing a new air filter. One of those is the MERV rating. You may not really understand that and how it affects your system. Here are a few tips to help you choose the right filter and understand what are MERV Rating.

What is the MERV?

This is basically the rating that is given to a filter to tell you how many particles it can filter out. It gives you an idea of what type of particles it best filters out as well. There are many types floating around your home such as dust, dirt, pollen, pet dander and the list keeps going on. This rating tells you how well it filters and what type of pollutants it can filter out for you. It gives you the worst case scenario for the filters ability to clean the air. So this helps you to know what your filter should be able to clean out of your air.
 
What rating is good?
It depends on your home and what type of particles you want to clean out of your air. Most filters that are recommended for home use are in between the 7-13 range. This will do the most cleaning of your air and catch the most particles from going back into your system. It will also depend on your system as well as some filters can cause your system to have trouble getting the proper amount of air back into it.
 
Why is it important?
For those with sensitive breathing such as asthma or allergies, a MERV rating can help you find the filter that is most likely to clean your air the best. This will help you to reduce the amount of dust, debris and pollutants that are floating back into your air system. When you have dirty air being recycled in your home it can wreak havoc on your breathing. By having a filter that can help filter most of that out, you can breathe easier in your own home and so can your family.
 
Be sure to change your filter out regularly. Depending on the filter you choose that could be once every month or every 60-90 days. The higher the MERV rating the more particles it will filter out of your air system. Determine which particles are being tossed around in your home most and go for a filter that targets those particles. You can start breathing easier and having cleaner air when you do!
 
Michael Collier is a professional home improvement blogger, he loves to spread informative tips about hvac maintenance. He too works as a consultant for Oxford Plumbing & Heating.