Worglorglestein t1_it6klko wrote on October 21, 2022 at 8:48 AM

We have a decent amount of moisture in the basement, and aside from dehumidifiers, I was debating about other potential ways to filter/cleanse the air:

First, I was thinking about adding a UV light somewhere on the furnace. Problem is, I'm not sure where the best place to put it would be! I've been reading some sources that suggest pointing it at the evaporator coil, but since I'm actually more concerned with filtering heated air, I'm not sure. Any suggestions? What about pointing it directly at the intake filter?
I'm also debating adding a layer of activated carbon to the intake filter. Think this would help with mold/cats/etc.? By adding an additional layer to the filter, should I be worried about reducing the amount of air output by the furnace?

Thanks!

Astramancer_ t1_it88sjr wrote on October 21, 2022 at 5:24 PM

UV takes too long to really do anything to the air (like 5+ minutes depending on the volume of the space), unless you have some absurdly overpowered lighting going on. I'm guessing that you're finding suggestions to point at the evaporator coil to keep junk from growing on the coil (which gets wet thanks to condensation) and thus contaminating the air, rather than trying to kill any bacteria in the air.

>I'm also debating adding a layer of activated carbon to the intake filter.

You'd be better served buying a higher quality filter, perhaps one that already has activated carbon built in. Putting the carbon on yourself probably won't help as much as you'd hope as the carbon will clog up the pores it settles on and then the air that gets through will go through other pores, avoiding the carbon. Sure, it might help some, but a higher quality filter will help more.