Is my apartment HVAC filter Useless? Photo Attached.

[johnfromla]

I'm renting an apartment in LA. One of the members of my family is immunocompromised and has severe asthma. We want to do everything in our power to help him; so, we thought we'd replace the HVAC filters at greater frequency than required. When we went to do this today, we noticed that the filter seems absolutely useless. It is 20x20x1 but the access panel has an opening of 48X22, and there doesn't seem to be any seal. I'm wondering if something was installed improperly? Or if there's something I can talk to my landlord about to perhaps rectify the issue?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. We feel bad about relying on a community we can't really contribute to, but we are desperate, and don't know where else to turn.

I've attached the images here:

[thatguy]

What’s behind the filter?


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[Bazooka Joe]

You can try to buy some self adhesive felt insulation ( after cleaning general area ) depending on age of that unit it could easily ( insulation ) deteriorated over the years.

The ones I’ve seen have a louvered grille almost as wide as that drop down panel and around 10” wide near the blower motor. I remember they had very specific doubleshaft blower motors ( Carrier I believe it was ) RPM, not your usual blower fan speeds. I suppose they wanted the Contractor to purchase OEM at a higher price.

[ammoniadog]

I agree with Bazooka. About the best you're going to do is to get some kind of foam weatherstripping tape and make a square with it around the louvers underneath that filter, then slap that filter back on.

You need to keep in mind though, that contrary to how most people would like things to work, an air filter's job in a standard HVAC system is only meant to protect that equipment. It keeps the motor and cooling/heating fins clean so air can keep flowing through. Even if you made the best seal in the world and got the best filter for that thing, it's not going to accomplish much to clean the air in your apartment.