Cedar season came early; how you can keep pollen and smells out of your home's air

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- It's the worst time of the year: cedar season. It's the time of year when Ashe Juniper trees across Central Texas release clouds of orange dust onto unsuspecting crowds, coating our lungs and making our eyes water.

Unfortunately, simply changing your air filter isn't going to make the problem go away.

"The original purpose of that filter is really to keep the equipment clean," said Al D'Andrea, owner of McCullough Heating and Air Conditioning.

D'Andrea said he spoke with experts at the University of Texas who told him that air filters just aren't enough to remove allergens.

They recommended three things: Remove the source, clean things up, then add air filters.

Cedar in the air

Removing the source means taking shoes off when you get home, changing clothes and wiping down pets. Essentially avoiding tracking pollen into your home.

Then it would be best if you vacuumed, a lot. Consistently vacuuming will keep any pollen that does get inside from accumulating.

"If you're willing to do those things, he said, then maybe, you know, a central filtration system can help," D'Andrea said.

Fancy, heavy-duty air filters won't help either.

"The high-end filters in the grocery store or Home Depot or Lowe's, those are very restrictive to airflow. It is just like an Olympic runner running around the block with their hand over their mouth. That's what you're doing to your system," D'Andrea said.

Restricting airflow to the HVAC will actually damage it over time.

The best filter you can get is called a Media Filter. These four-inch thick filters are bound up like an accordion. When unfurled, they can stretch up to thirty feet in length.

However, you can't use one of these filters without the proper setup. D'Andrea recommends getting the adapters for this type of filter next time you have to replace your system.

Smelly homes and space age tech

Ultraviolet light can help eliminate smells in the home by killing off bacteria and mold growing in the AC, but there are some other methods.

Colorfil's air filters attract bacteria, toxic chemicals, and mold smell using chemisorption. The filters are marketed for homes with pets.

"What's actually happening is it's sort of absorbing the chemicals and then actually reacting with them chemically to irreversibly bind them in the filter itself," said inventor co-founder Jim Langer.

Langer designed these bright magenta air filters for NASA and their next generation of space suits as part of his Ph.D. research at the University of Illinois.

"One of the issues you have in space, whether it's in a space suit or craft or space station is that toxic gasses can build up over time, and there's really no way to just air the place out," Langer said.

The filters are covered in a special polymer that comes with an electric charge. As the filter absorbs more chemicals, like ammonia, the filter changes in color to a bright yellow. This also indicates when to change the filter.

Colorfil can be bought in several big box stores but hasn't been adopted by NASA yet.

"NASA has been building the next gen spacesuit for about, I don't know, probably since the 1980s and still isn't there yet. So it's a long road," Langer said.