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Another down side is, you don't want to do this if you're in the swampy south. You'll bring in all the humidity and that will cause all sorts of problems. Also, you bring in any dust, pollen, etc that may be lingering.

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Putting air purifiers by windows could probably help. Might need a couple though. It might work with just one big though, for instance I know there's huge tube shaped ones with a ton of surface area to catch stuff in HEPA- or electro static filters.

This works great for me in NE USA. We have two large filters. Usually keep one upstairs and one downstairs. They make a noticeable difference. But they were about $250 each.

To counter matt_the_bass's example, I live in the NE US, I have always used the method (in this case, window upstairs open, window downstairs open, natural draft cooling the house by dragging the air through), but there is absolutely no level of filtering that will stop all pollutants and allergens from entering the house as long as you are not filtering 100% of the air.

Last time I noticed, nobody makes a window-sized AC-esque filter that works efficiently down to PM2.5 levels... and doing so would also eliminate said window being a window.

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