The following information was taken from an article entitled “An overlooked opportunity for sustainability – Air Filter Life Cycle Cost” . The article was written by Charles J Seyffer of Camfil Farr – Riverdale NJ and was published in HPAC Engineering

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Though seen as disposable, air filters can have significant and far-reaching impacts on HVAC-system performance

Although each of these air filters has a minimum-efficiency reporting value of 13, their life-cycle costs may vary considerably.

During the development of ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 180, Standard Practice for Inspection and Maintenance of Commercial Building HVAC Systems, there was extensive discussion of the decision to run HVAC-system components to failure. In many cases, building owners find running equipment to failure cheaper than maintaining equipment over time. Given prevailing attitudes toward sustainability and concerns about environmental impact, however, running to failure is falling out of favor.

Properly maintained, the main components of HVAC systems—coils, fans, casings, controls—should last 20 years or longer. One component that has a major impact on the cost of maintenance, the lifetime of other components, energy use, and the protection of building occupants and processes, however, is considered disposable: the air filter.

Key Factors
Contaminant capture. In the selection of air filters, the primary consideration should be maintained contaminant-capture efficiency. Once that is assured, the life-cycle cost of air filtration can be analyzed. Most critical to the analysis of air-filter life-cycle cost is pressure drop, or resistance to airflow, over the life of a filter. Filter selection should be based on the fan curve made by the original system designer. In some cases, with constant-speed fans, operating outside of original design pressure-drop parameters—by selecting filters with too little or too much resistance—can result in unnecessarily high energy use. In such instances, a blower may have to be re-balanced to its fan curve for energy savings to be achieved.

A life-cycle-cost analysis must consider all factors. Alternative scenarios should be examined to ensure a facility owner is receiving the best return on investment without compromising an HVAC system’s ability to remove harmful contaminants.

Fortunately, most systems today employ variable-frequency drives (VFDs), which adjust to system demand, allowing a wider range of acceptable resistance. In a VFD system, the lower the resistance, the lower the demand for energy required to move air through filters and, thus, the greater the number of air changes per hour, which results in a higher contaminant removal rate.

Camfil low energy air filter products provide the highest indoor air quality, with the lowest pressure drop, which deliver the biggest energy savings to our customers, without compromising air quality. We know that saving energy is one of the most challenging tasks facing the HVAC industry today.

Keep in mind that energy accounts for up to 70 percent of an air filter’s total life cycle cost (LCC), so it always pays for you to choose the best low energy air filter combination for the right filtration application. We’ll show you how and we’ll prove it in the lab, on your site, or in LCC calculations.

To download the full article written by Charles J Seyffer, click on the link below:

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The Camfil Ltd Team