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About a month ago Peter went to replace the air filter and found out that it measures  21.5”x 21.5”x1″.Can you imagine a more random size? To be honest, before this predicament, I’d never thought about filter sizes. The first time we thought to buy a replacement we thought all we needed to know was whether the vent was square or rectangular. We were that naive. We searched and searched for the right sized filter until finally, Peter talked to an air conditioning company. We learned that they could special order us twelve filters for $10 each. After seeing the prices of store bought filters, I was appalled. Who wants to spend $120 per year on air conditioning filters? I don’t.

That’s when our great friend, Clay , told us about cut-to-size filters. I looked for these at both Home Depot and Lowe’s but only managed to find them at the latter. This particular air filter was only $6. Here’s a picture of the packaging.

Unlike other filters, the Natural Aire does not need a frame. The fibers in the filter are so thick that you can just cut it and put it into your vent as is. This is really helpful if  the area around your vent is tight on space because you can bend the filter without worrying about breaking the frame.

We put our old filter on top of the new one and drew a line with a Sharpie to mark where we needed to cut.

Here’s a close up of that horribly dirty filter. We obviously waited longer than we were supposed to before we tackled this task. In fact, I’d be surprised if Peter has ever changed the air filter in the entire three or so years that he has lived here.

The excess filter can be discarded, unless of course you wanted to save it for a fun little craft.

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