Airflow physics and filter-trade margins, from NAFA.
Talking Air Filtration is the National Air Filtration Association's podcast, pairing conversations with people in the filter trade with talks recorded at NAFA events. One session models how air mixing lowers infection risk in a room, and another shows what carrying inventory does to a business's margins.
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Talking Air Filtration is the podcast of the National Air Filtration Association. It follows filtration from the middle of a room all the way to a supplier's balance sheet. Its episodes use two formats. Some are conversations. Tony Veroven leads one with Jim and Patrick Rosenthal of Tex-Air Filters, and Kyle Magnet from AirThings appears in another. Others are talks and sessions recorded at NAFA events, including the Technical Seminar 2025. The science is concrete. In 'Trends in Indoor Air', a seminar speaker describes a model showing that when someone in a room is infected, filters placed near the center of a well-mixed space lower the risk for most of the people there. The same talk argues that pushing more highly filtered air through a space also mixes it, which clears out the dead pockets where filtration falls short. It also points listeners to a portable air cleaner sizing tool on the Harvard Healthy Buildings page. The talk ends by comparing indoor air to tap water: both are things people should expect to be clean. Hardware gets a blunter treatment. In 'Designing Built HVAC Filtration Systems for Optimum Performance', one speaker observes that even large buildings now tend to use package units instead of big built-up systems. The same speaker calls the price gap between a HEPA housing and cheap filter tracking a disconnect, and a chance for the industry to build better hardware. The business material is what sets the show apart. One presenter walks through the cost of carrying inventory, showing adjusted margin falling as inventory value rises. The presenter then offers a questionnaire that sorts every expense as inventory-related or not, to find a break-even margin. The Tex-Air conversation centers on responsiveness: customers moving from MERV 10 to MERV 13 pleated filters in the same openings, and the odd sizes in a large contractor order that a responsive supplier can fill. A session on NAFA's guidelines treats them as a sales tool alongside cold calling and social media. It closes with the story of a client with old documents and paintings whose carbon refill order has returned every year since. Policy and data come in through the AirThings episode. It covers indoor air data trending slightly worse year over year and state legislation aimed mainly at schools, where air quality affects attendance, funding and test scores. By that account, federal action is still mostly talk. The speakers are plainspoken and sometimes wry. One presenter points out that quick phone questions are free, because they are not lawyers billing for five minutes. What a listener gets is a working view of the trade, where airflow physics and profit margins are part of the same job. 'Trends in Indoor Air' is the clearest way into the science, and 'Balancing Your Inventory, Customer Service and Profitability' is the place to start on the business side.
Made for: Suits a listener who works in or around HVAC, filter distribution or facilities management and wants both the building-science case for cleaner indoor air and the practical side of stocking and selling filters.
What sets it apart: Because the National Air Filtration Association produces it, the show gives the business of filtration, from inventory carrying costs to cold calling with NAFA guidelines, the same weight as research on air mixing and infection risk. Recorded seminar sessions run alongside conversations with people in the trade.
Finally, an air filtration podcast for people who agree that #cleanairmatters! Listen for interviews with influential people, best practices and education in air filtration.NAFA strives to be The Source for Expertise, Education and Best Practices in Air Filtration. NAFA publishes the Guide to Air Filtration, several best practice guidelines, and maintains several certification programs for individuals to educate and elevate themselves in the profession.
A classroom's promised air changes meet actual measurements, and you get permission to ask awkward questions.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A clear, practical case for making clean indoor air a health-based goal in building decisions.
Cleaner indoor air is framed as both a building-performance issue and a health priority, with Dr. Joseph G. Allen of Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health making the case that filtration matters well beyond particle reduction.
A practical look at why filter selection depends on the application, the customer, and the odd sizes.
Air filtration is framed as a practical business and engineering challenge, as Jim and Patrick Rosenthal of Tex Air Filters talk through customers moving from MERV 10 pleated filters to MERV 13 in the same openings and explain why odd-size orders can create opportunity for a…
A practical review of how HVAC hardware, bypass, and installation details affect filtration performance.
Kevin Delahunt treats HVAC filtration as a field performance problem, not just a rating on a filter. His review of particulate load, ventilation choices, packaged and built-up systems, hardware, bypass, unusual events, and post-installation checks keeps returning to the same…
A grounded review of how stock levels, customer expectations, and profitability connect.
The episode frames inventory management as a practical financial problem, not just an operations habit. John, president of Effective Inventory Management, gives the discussion a concrete structure, moving through customer expectations, demand forecasting, replenishment lead…
A grounded review of how indoor-air-quality data and school HVAC policy are shifting after the pandemic.
Indoor air quality becomes a practical building issue here, tied to measurement, school funding, and policy rather than treated as an abstract health concern.
Austrian Feuerwehr lessons from real Einsatz stories.
Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser build single reported stories around one scientific question.
Flora Lichtman interviews scientists, from gut-health researchers to Queen's Brian May.
Steven Novella and a rotating panel dissect weekly science news and debunk pseudoscience claims.
Long interviews with neuroscientists and philosophers on consciousness, decision-making, and whether AI is anything like a brain.
Bob McDonald anchors weekly multi-segment interviews on new research, from cricket courtship to moon missions.
["At NAFA's Technical Seminar 2025, Dr.
Tex-Air Filters started in 2000, nearly went broke after buying a small manufacturer, and Jim Rosenthal says NAFA helped turn it into a 200-employee company with offices in Fort Worth, Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston.
Talking Air Filtration presents Kevin Delahunt's Designing Built HVAC Filtration Systems for Optimum Performance talk, framed as NAFA education for an ASHRAE audience.
John from Effective Inventory Management says 9 to 13% of inventory items often drive 80% of activity in distributor warehouses.
Talking Air Filtration's "The Future Of Fresh Air: Navigating Post-Pandemic Changes in Indoor Air Quality" centers on how indoor air quality moved from a background issue to a policy and building-operations problem.
Alex uses three years of recruiting analytics to explain how companies can attract, hire, and retain talent through a changing labor market.
Alex Chossofsky presents an economic and labor-market update for Talking Air Filtration, linking economic data to inventory, capacity, hiring, and investment decisions through 2025.
Jeffrey Siegel, a University of Toronto professor and indoor-air-quality researcher, assesses filtration alongside moisture control, source removal, and ventilation.
Talking Air Filtration presents Bob Burkhead, Kathleen Owen, and Don Thornburg on the history of ASHRAE filtration testing and the future of ISO and ASHRAE standards.
Norman Rodriguez explains how Springfield Spring Corporation developed engineered air-filter holding-frame clips after Phil Jones of Flanders Filters asked him to make a P-clip nearly 30 years ago.
Jacob Schneider, a civil engineer and healthcare construction program manager, explains how filtration vendors can influence hospital projects spanning roughly $2 billion and 2 million square feet.
Talking Air Filtration hosts Jay Carter and Dale Harrison explain how to size and install UVGI systems for evaporator-coil cleaning, airborne treatment, upper-air applications, and portable units.
John Rahala of AAF Flanders traces electrospinning from electric-field research in the 1600s through Professor Reneker's 1990s University of Akron work to modern filtration media.
Jeff Littleton, ASHRAE’s executive vice president, describes the organization’s 53,000 members, 130 countries, 130 standards and guideline committees, and partnership with NAFA.
Talking Air Filtration presenters Dave Schaaf of AAF Flanders and Sean Gilstorf of DMARC explain why gases and vapors can pass through HEPA or OPA particulate filters.
Don Milton of the University of Maryland School of Public Health argues that fine airborne particles are a major route for influenza and COVID transmission.
Kevin Young, Senior RCI Manager at H&I Company, explains how lean management applies to manufacturing operations and administration.
Talking Air Filtration records a 2022 Annual Convention session in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, where Sharon Needham and Will Denton explain how NAFA certifications and the Clean Air Award can support air-filtration sales and service.
Tony Veroven hosts Dr.
Zach Conway of Kiterra explains how particulate matter, CO2, VOCs, radon, and ozone sensors can guide indoor-air decisions.
Talking Air Filtration records Tom Justice's April 2022 NAFA Technical Seminar conversation with Bob Burkhead, president of Blue Heaven Technologies and a 35-year air-filtration veteran.
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David Space, a former Boeing engineer, explains how aircraft cabins operate at minus 45 to minus 85 degrees Fahrenheit while maintaining cabin pressure equivalent to 6,000 to 7,000 feet.
Patrick Rosenthal of TexAir Filters explains NAFA's 2022 guideline for filtration in continuing care retirement communities, covering independent living, assisted living, and skilled nursing.
Dr.
Dr.
Tony Veroven and Jeff Grady present a National Air Filtration Association webinar with Keith Jordan, Jose Senatore, and Brad Sharp on combining traditional filtration with UVC, air purifiers, and ionization.
Tony Veroven introduces a December 1 webinar moderated by Joel Swan of AAF Flanders with Mike Clark, Scott Tennyson, and Mark Tucker on air-filter media shortages.
An interview with air filtration legend Barney Burroughs about his career and the impact of filtration on the world.