Will a High-Efficiency, Low-Pressure-Drop Air Filter Reduce My Energy Bills?

Response by Dan Dearden, CAFS

The short answer: it depends — but in most cases, yes, very likely.There’s an 80–90% chance that installing a high-efficiency, extended-surface media filter will reduce your heating and cooling energy bills.

What Is a High-Efficiency, Extended-Surface Media Filter?

A high-efficiency, extended-surface media filter (what we call an ES16MF) is a MERV 16 air filter with a large amount of filter media — enough surface area that air can pass through it easily. This design minimizes restriction to airflow (known as low pressure drop) while still capturing fine airborne particles.

Why Does This Type of Filter Save Energy?

It comes down to airflow. Air is the vehicle that delivers heating and cooling throughout your home. When air moves more freely through your HVAC system, your equipment doesn’t have to work as hard — meaning less energy is required to maintain comfort.

In 2012, John Proctor, P.E., published a study showing that as air filter restriction increases, energy consumption also increases. The higher the pressure drop (resistance to airflow), the lower the system’s energy efficiency, measured as EER (Energy Efficiency Ratio). Conversely, when pressure drop decreases, EER improves — your system becomes more efficient.

What National Comfort Institute (NCI) Testing Shows

The National Comfort Institute (NCI) has tested hundreds of thousands of residential HVAC systems nationwide. Their findings are eye-opening:

“Typical installed equipment only operates at 55% to 70% of rated capacity.”

Even more telling, 80–90% of those underperforming systems were found to have air filters that are at least twice as restrictive as the system was designed for.NCI’s top recommendation for restoring performance? Install an Extended Surface Media Filter.

What We’ve Seen in Our Own Testing

At Essential Air Products, we’ve tested how restrictive air filters affect the energy consumption of today’s high-efficiency blower motors (required in new furnaces and air handlers since 2019).

Here’s what we found:

• When the filter’s pressure drop doubled from its design level, the blower consumed nearly three times more electricity.

• When pressure drop increased beyond that — which we often see in the field — energy use climbed even higher, in some cases exceeding that of older, “inefficient” motors made before 2019.

The Bottom Line

If your HVAC system is like the vast majority of systems in the U.S. — operating with a restrictive filter — then yes, upgrading to an extended-surface, high-efficiency media filter like the NovusAer will almost certainly reduce your heating and cooling energy bills.

And if your current filter is more than twice as restrictive as it should be (which is common), a NovusAer filter could deliver significant savings — all while improving your home’s air quality.