The hardware/home maintenance section runs along the left wall of the store, including an absurd number of HVAC filters. (You don't tend to see nearly this many around here, outside of big-box hardware stores -- proper central air systems just aren't that common.) It's too bad that Walmart left the painted concrete block exposed -- I believe Kmart normally had proper wall coverings.
Air filters are one of the rare things I actually go to Walmart for these days. I kind of wish that it didn't, but my air conditioning system has a filter in the attic right before the air handler which needs one of those really thick 4" filters. The intake in the house itself doesn't need a filter, but it doesn't feel right not to have something there so I put the least restrictive filters I can find in there like those green ones on the bottom shelf. While those cheap fiberglass, or whatever they are, filters were common at one time, they are hard to find now that everyone wants to sell some kind of super filtering filter. Food Town does have my size in the filters I can use, but they want something like $3-4 for one when I can get a 4 pack for like $6 at Walmart.
ReplyDeleteEven still, I don't like going to Walmart these days so I still don't always buy it from there, but I'll buy them if I have some other reason to go to Walmart...which doesn't happen too often.
My car's air filter is also cheaper at Walmart than at the auto part stores, but the difference isn't as much as the house air filters and Walmart's automotive filter display is such a hot mess (not that the home filters are much better, but they are better) that you may spend 20 minutes trying to find a filter their website says the store has only to find that it simply isn't on the shelf anywhere and the employees, if you can find one, can't find it either. It is just better to go to one of the parts stores and be done with it!
I've never lived somewhere that had a real central air system, so the only time I've ever bought an air filter was when the smoke was really bad one year and I used it with my box fan to try to filter the air. It kind of worked...
DeleteThis was long enough ago that I bought it from Fred Meyer, back when they still had a significant hardware/home improvement section and before their general merchandise prices went completely insane.