Media air cleaners have been around a long time and use a filter to trap particles as air moves through your home HVAC system. They rely on your heating-and-cooling system to force air through the filter. This can make your furnace or air-conditioner work harder to distribute air, decreasing its efficiency. The effectiveness of media air cleaners varies among systems and filters, but they generally do a good job trap larger air particles. However, a media air filter often fails to capture the smaller-sized particles that electronic air cleaners trap and collect.
Electronic air cleaners are more effective at removing smaller particles than media air cleaners. They do
not decrease furnace and air-conditioner efficiency like media air cleaners, but do require homeowners to clean them regularly (as discussed in above section). The dirtier they get, the less effective they work.
