A 1-inch builder filter protects the equipment. It does almost nothing for what you breathe from November to February.
A builder-grade MERV 8 stops pollen and most dust. Wood smoke and inversion particulate go straight past it into the house.
Cold air settles in the basin, warm air caps it, and everything the valley emits stays at eye level. Your house pulls that air in through every gap it has.
Trapped air sits in the basin until a storm scours it out.
A tight envelope keeps the bad air out, but it also traps cooking particulate, CO2 and humidity in. Homes we tighten without adding ventilation get worse, not better.
A deep-pleat media cabinet on the return for particulate, and a fresh-air intake that runs on a control, not on whatever leaks through the rim joist. That combination is what actually moves the numbers.
Prices are what we actually charge on a standard single-system home. If yours is not standard we will tell you before we quote.
A 4-inch or 5-inch cabinet cut into the return. Holds MERV 13 without choking the blower, and the filter lasts a year instead of a month.
$740 installedFor a bedroom or a nursery where you want true HEPA and do not want to touch the ductwork. We size it to the room volume, not the box copy.
From $310Before any filter upgrade we measure static pressure. Dropping MERV 13 into a system that cannot pull it is how blowers die.
IncludedA damper and control that brings outside air in on a schedule, and knows to stay shut when the valley air is worse than yours.
$1,180 installedWe camera the trunk first and show you. If it does not need doing we will say so. Most do not.
$480 typicalThe cheapest air quality fix in most houses is an exhaust fan that actually moves the CFM it claims. We measure and replace.
From $260A two-hour baseline in your house, logged over a normal day. You get the readings whether or not you buy anything from us.
The one that matters during inversion. Logged indoors and outdoors at the same time so you can see the ratio your house is achieving.
If bedroom CO2 climbs past 1,400ppm overnight, the house is not breathing. That is a ventilation problem, not a filter problem.
Utah winters run dry enough to crack furniture and irritate airways. We log it before recommending any humidification.
Across the filter and across the coil. This is the number that decides which filter your system can actually carry.
New flooring, fresh paint and attached garages. Worth knowing about before you spend money on filtration that will not touch it.
"They tested for two hours and told me my ducts were fine and I mostly needed a better bath fan. Cost me $260 instead of the $2,000 quote I had."
"Our daughter's asthma is measurably better through January now. They showed us the indoor PM2.5 log to prove the cabinet was doing something."
The baseline test is $145 and comes off the price of any work you decide to do afterwards.
(801) 555-0138A technician answers. We do not use a call center.