Resources and Support for Multiple Chemical Sensitivities, Environmental Illness, and Chemical Injuries in Canada

Filtering Air Through an A/C Unit

This is my first "prototype" < smiles > and it's obviously pretty ugly. I wanted to simply see how well this works, and so far, it works very well. I will probably change it so that the hose can be run behind the furniture and be less visible.

Materials:

Length metal flexible ducting found at Home Depot in heating/ducting section
2 floor vent ducts
aluminum foil tape
a/c unit
air cleaner

I think the pictures are pretty obvious, but I taped the floor ducts to the metal hose and then taped the rectangular ends of the floor ducts to the incoming air on the a/c unit and to the incoming air on the air cleaner. The air is drawn in through the fan in the a/c unit, travels the length of the hose/duct and then is filtered through charcoal and/or particulate filtration material in the air cleaner.

I've used this with only the air cleaner turned on and it draws fresh air in very well alone without having to run the a/c unit, too. That's great as it saves energy.

When I want to use the a/c to get cold air, I turn on the air cleaner as well because it pulls the cooled air through the charcoal bed. Without turning it on, there is too much resistance from the charcoal and the air movement through it is impeded.

The above unit is an adapted Kenmore Electronic air cleaner, but any air cleaner that filters air will work. (Instructions on how to adapt it to filter VOCs)


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