But a quick solution as posted by the university of michigan s medical center is to create your own filter using a box fan and a standard hepa filter both readily available in most hardware stores and costing about 25 for everything.
Diy air filter box fan reddit.
The fan does sound like it s a bit under strain.
There will be a little arrow on the filter showing which way the air should flow.
20 inch box fan.
To make one start by buying a merv 13 or fpr 10 furnace filter and tape it to the back of a box fan.
Using our lighthouse 3016 iaq laser particle counter air samples were collected for 2 minutes with a 2 min delay.
Most fans will simply recirculate the air out the back around the edges if the filter plugs off.
Insofar as filter changing costs you will find that it is still much cheaper to buy furnace filters and variants of them without sacrificing on quality or air cleaning capacity.
Select a fan you wish to use for your filter.
These filter fans can filter out the small particles that are common in wildfire or wood smoke.
But if you have an air quality emergency on your hands regional wildfires or your charred dinner under the broiler and you have a box fan tape the right sort of filter and no time to get.
The filters sell for about 15.
This set up was done in 2 rooms.
Your total cost for a diy box fan filter can be as low as 40 50 00 including incidentals like duct tape or higher depending on the filter options.
Shouldn t be a problem.
The ideal fan is a 20 in 20 in 51 cm 51 cm box fan since similarly sized filters are common.
Diy air filter one easy and affordable way to make your own air cleaner at home is with a box fan and a furnace filter.
Locate the screws on the back part of the fan and turn them counterclockwise to remove half the case as well as the fan s handle if it has one.
Some have wondered whether we should tape it onto the back of the box fan filter.
20 by 20 by 1 merv 13 furnace filter.
Right now i have a small box fan that i have taped a furnace filter to the back.
This diy air filter for wildfire smoke is less than 20.
One with the box fan and one with the hepa filter.
Take the back casing off of a box fan.
If you re worried you can get one of the baseboard thermostats and put it in between the fan and the filter.
Don t do this with a heater fan as it might set the filter on fire.
The fan is also very loud i don t know if quieter box fans exist or if i should attempt to modify this to work with a circular vornado type fan i have one on hand that is much much quieter and seems to push more air.
These can be hard to find quickly with the conditions however.