Does your central air have filtration?

You want to make sure to change the filters every 90 days. When I lived in Texas ours were really gross after just a few months. I would hate to have been breathing all that in unnecessarily.

Yes, you should use filters and spend a few minutes picking the right one. You want to get a filter that can handle Seattle's wildfire smoke, and if you spend a bit more it'll even filter out many viruses. Never thought that would be important...

Higher MERV numbers will cost a bit more and put a bit more strain to your HVAC. I would categorize filters as generally pretty cheap, though, and modern HVAC should be able to handle the load. Last summer we put in Nordic Pure MERV 12 for wildfire smoke. This summer we are using MERV 14 to minimize virus exposure. I had to order those directly from Nordic Pure since Amazon didn't carry our filter size.

Also see our post on wildfire smoke which has some info on standalone filters. We use Coway units downstairs. freshchalk.com/blog/preppin...