Choosing the Right Air Filter for Your Custom Home

At Clarum, we believe “home” is a place where you should feel at ease. Comfort and health are important factors in that equation, and to achieve them, you need ventilation and filtration systems that are up to the task.

When a builder fails to plan for these systems properly, the results can include poor air quality, discomfort and ultimately, poor health as well. That’s why choosing the right filter is so important. To ensure that the air you breathe in your modern home is fresh, comfortable and healthy, it’s vital to select the right level of air filtration for your needs.

Indoor Air Quality: An invisible problem with serious consequences.

There are many possible elements that can affect the indoor air quality in your modern home. Depending on the building materials and finishes that your builder has chosen, you may experience pollutants from chemical off-gassing. At Clarum Homes, we make every effort to select safe, eco-friendly products and materials that mitigate these issues with indoor air quality and promote a healthy, comfortable home environment.

But the tiny cloud of particulates that are a natural result of your lifestyle is much more challenging
to avoid.

You’ve probably noticed the dust specks that originate clothing, plants, cooking, rugs, pets and other sources as well.

What you may not realize is that the dust particles you can see are actually the minority of what’s there. Within each cubic foot of the average modern home, there are up to one million particles too small to see. When a particle is that small, it can remain in the air for weeks on end.

The scary part of this problem is that those particulates you can’t see are the ones that can hurt you.

The American Lung Association has identified poor indoor air quality as a major health concern, linked to long-term respiratory problems.

Air Filtration Standards: Choose the right filter for your health.

The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) guides the development of standards for air filter performance in home building. Today’s standards are based on what the industry refers to as ‘MERV’ – or “Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value” – which ranks a filter’s ability to protect your long-term respiratory health.

At Clarum, we use MERV 13 filters (one of the highest standards) in our custom home designs, guaranteeing superior air quality in your modern home. Results seen by our customers include:

• Better health. Our MERV 13 filters ensure superior air quality, protecting your family from health risks over time.
• Lower costs. Unlike the comparable HEPA filter, MERV 13 filters do not create a lot of air resistance, making it possible to achieve extreme filtration without extreme HVAC system costs.
• Greater HVAC efficiency. Because they’re low-obstruction, MERV 13 filters allow for efficient HVAC performance, reducing operating costs as well.

Air Filtration in Your Custom Home: A whole-system approach to health and efficiency.

To achieve fresh, healthy, pure air in your custom home, it takes more than just a good filter. It takes a builder who understands all of the systems that contribute to the environment within your home: how they’re interconnected, and how they can enhance each other’s performance.

When a MERV 13 filter is placed in the context of a home with airtight construction, healthy flooring materials and a super-efficient heat-recovery ventilator, the result is a level of comfort and well-being that is far more than the sum of its parts.

At Clarum Homes, this is our objective in every project we take on; it’s also our expertise and our specialty: to design and build gorgeous modern homes that promote comfort, health, and sustainability.

To learn more about Clarum’s approach to building healthy, high performance and Passive homes, give us a call at 650.322.7069 or click here to download our modern home building guide.