‍ Are pleated filters that much more efficient? When you factor in everything else we're about to talk about, well, you'll see in a second. So the answer to the question is technically yes, fiberglass filters do allow for better airflow, but the difference is largely immaterial to the HVAC system and its health and efficiency. Denser gases absorb energy with less effort, resulting in a quicker cooling process of your home and less demand on the motor. Puron does this with less energy, because it is more dense. ‍ Refrigerant cools your home by absorbing heat from the air, thus cooling it down. Puron’s replacement of Freon, along with some general improvements in HVAC construction, have decreased the demands of the HVAC system and made the decreased airflow from pleated filter use sufficient for the system to run smoothly. The biggest factor though has been the innovations in the HVAC systems themselves. Pleated air filters are now constructed with synthetic materials that have smaller individual fibers, which are wound in such a way as to maximize airflow and filtering efficiency. This was years ago when pleated filters were made of cotton and HVAC motors weren’t anything special. Pleated air filters used to be the cause of many HVAC breakdowns, because the system motor would have to work harder than it could handle to pull the air it needed through the tightly wound filter. The pleated air filter and the HVAC system have though, and their innovations have shattered the seamlessness of the efficiency/airflow spectrum and rendered fiberglass air filters essentially obsolete. You see, the fiberglass air filter hasn’t changed much over the years. That’s not to say that airflow and efficiency are exactly inversely proportional, especially not in 2019. They don’t really filter anything beyond the largest of particles.

There’s a reason they’re commonly referred to as “rock catchers” in the industry. Creating a filter like this has been a challenging task because generally speaking, the more efficient a filter is at actual filtration, the worse its airflow is.įiberglass filters fall on the far end on that spectrum, delivering near-maximum airflow in a tradeoff that affords almost zero filtering efficiency. ‍ Which has better air flow, fiberglass or pleated filters?Īn effective air filter blends filtering efficiency with airflow to create a product that is effective at removing particles from the air but doesn’t create an unnecessary demand on your HVAC motor by blocking air from getting through. There used to be some advantages to the cheaper fiberglass, but there really isn’t anymore. So which one of these varieties is better for your home? Well given that we just said “you get what you pay for”, you can probably guess that the pleated air filters are better. Material is folded like an accordion to maximize surface area.

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