Why Do NovusAer Filters Last So Long?

Response by Dan Dearden, CAFS – Certified Air Filtration Specialist, Essential Air Products Founder, NovusAer Inventor

People often ask me, “Dan, how in the world can your filters last three years?”

The short answer: surface area. Lots and lots of it.

How I Learned This Trick

Back around 2010, I heard about a Swiss-made air filter system called the IQAir Perfect 16. They claimed their filters could go three years before needing replacement. Now, I’ve been in HVAC a long time, so naturally, I thought, Yeah, right.

But I went to their training, learned the science behind it, and decided to give it a shot. We installed them for customers, and sure enough—three years later, those filters were ready to be replaced. Not early, not late. Right on schedule. I was sold.

Bigger Is Better (at Least for Filters)

Here’s how it works. Think of your filter like a sieve. Air passes through, dirt and dust get trapped. Once it’s clogged, you’ve got to replace it.

A regular hardware store filter has about 4–7 square feet of surface area to catch particles. Extended surface area filters start at 61 square feet.

The NovusAer filter? A whopping 240 square feet.That’s like having 60 regular filters working at the same time. If you were changing those one at a time, you’d be swapping them out every 18 days to match what the NovusAer handles in three years.

A Picture’s Worth 1,000 Filters

In the photo below, you’ll see a few different filters stretched out flat so you can compare:

• Far right – a standard 1-inch filter.

• Next left – a high-efficiency MERV 14 3M Filtrete 2500.

• Next left – a Lennox Healthy Climate Carbon Clean MERV 16.

• Far left – the four HEPA-level filters inside a single NovusAer cabinet.

A NovusAer cabinet has 242 square feet of surface area. That's the equivalent of 60 standard furnace filters.

Once you see that much surface area in one unit, the “three years” thing starts to make a lot more sense.

Still not convinced? Here’s a comparison of the 11 most common filter solutions:

And for the real data junkies, here’s a more comprehensive comparison:

The Real-Life Perks

If your furnace is tucked away in a crawl space, perched up in an attic, or hidden in the basement behind a flight of stairs, this is huge. Instead of wrestling with filter changes every month or two, you can go about your life and only think about it every three years or so.

That’s not just convenient—it’s peace of mind.