"Man what a bunch of diehard smarty's here. How could using the same material be skimping? And having it extend beyond the filter holding box. Paying $8 for a tiny 4-5" paper filter is too much, considering a giant paper home AC filter is a fraction of the cost, and made from the same material. My mower isn't worth $50 anyway. The filters are way overpriced on purpose and is just a way of raping you for more money. Just like $1 USB cables are jacked way up to $20-$30 when Best Buy, etc tries to sell you them along with your new printer. Guess I picked a bad place to ask. I've read online of people making their filters for other applications (automobiles, etc), but I guess no one here has heard of such a thing." When I look at the $8.00 OEM Briggs air filter I just purchased I'm struck by the following: 1. It uses a flexible plastic surround that secures the media and seals the air cleaner housing perfectly. I have no idea how you propose to create that part of the air filter assembly. It is vitally important that air go through and not around your home-brew air filter. 2. The filter media itself is deeply fluted and provides a large filtration area. Most home AC filters I've seen are not nearly as deeply fluted and would not be nearly as effective. If you want to jury-rig some home-made filter by cutting up an air conditioning air filter then I say go ahead. Most of use have lawn mowers that we paid well in excess of $50.00 for and intend to keep them running properly for a couple of decades or longer. Most of us have better things to do than spend the time creeating a homemade air filter when a reasonably priced well designed replacement is available.

Your Honda may have a "cabin air filter". If so, smoke smell can linger in it. Check the maintenance section of you owner's manual. The filter is replaceable. I have a Honda CR-V and its cabin filter is located behind the glove box. If there is no air filter, a cabin scent hanger may help mask the smell. A popular odor is "Pine". Used car dealers often hang these things under a seat to aid sales. Scent hangers are available at auto supply stores.

Timely topic! We live in a wooded area with lots of oaks and maples and stone walls and gardens. Consequently there are many chipmunks. They have nested in my car's cabin air filter and have even hung out in the cabin. Their scat resembles that of other small rodents, but the acorns in the nest is sort of a giveaway. I have cleaned the vehicle and replaced the air filter on more than one occasion. I recently did that, and the chipmunk/s is back again. I had saved a dead, dried out, cool, large benign insect (to photograph) in a small cup that I set in the center cup holder bin. It was very DEAD. A few days later when using my car, GONE! Mr. Chippy took it. So, once again I must go through the cleaning, sanitizing and replacement of the cabin air filter. Grrr. It goes without saying that rodent poop, like the scat of most wild animals, is nothing to mess around with. Rodents can harbor parasites and diseases. I spent a while perusing online for solutions to this common problem. I read about a lot of purported solutions, most of which are ineffective or problematic (dryer tissues, scents, gizmos and gadgets, and, heaven forbid, poisons -- NO!). There is no way to "exterminate" every chipmunk, even if I wanted to. Our home is in a conservation area, for one, and there are hundred of nut and seed producing trees. One year a small weasel showed up and had a talk with a lot of the chipmunks. Weasel was t seen this year. I am going to have to clean out the garage from inherited furniture, replace the rodent chewed garage door gasket, and keep the car or cars in the concrete bunker garage. Meanwhile, I will try to remember not to have any snacks, even food, taco wrappers in the car. No eating and no crumbs. No ketchup packets in the glove compartment. I will look into installing some wire mesh physical barrier around the air intake and the cabin air filter. Not as easy as it might sound. Here, below, is the only promising approach I can across online. It is from a viewer's comment on a YouTube video and I will include it here for the purpose of discussion. Seems like a lot of effort. (Note: anyone trying to install a mesh barrier wants to be sure that they don't end up choking off outside air supplie to their engine of something important.) ~~~~ The only way you can stop the mice from getting into the Cabin air filter in a Toyota Corolla is to place 1/4" square wire mesh (buy from Home Depot), in a small roll, ( its called "1/4 x 1/4 Welded Hardware Mesh" ) over the openings where the air goes into the car's cabin. I own a 2008 Corolla and I raised up the front hood, then removed the passenger side plastic cover that is at the base of the window, and that gave me access to the air intake holes. Guess what: Toyota made it all but impossible to actually get your hands into that space where the air intake is. They put another beam in front of the intake, about 1.5" in front of it. I cut 2 strips of mesh, each one 2.5" wide, (one set 5" long, another one 6.5" long), and I used 1/2' dia SUPER-MAGNETS to hold the wire mesh strips into place while I used 'Goop' glue (from Walmart) to glue those mesh strips securely into place. The magnets 'PUSH' the mesh onto the metal of the car itself, so the mesh has to be placed between the car and the magnets. I just left the magnets behind on the 2.5" wide mesh strips. For the 2 mesh strips on the left hole; I had to glue the magnets onto the strips first, then let the glue dry, and then push the strips in with the magnets securely fastened to the strips, because the magnet at the far end is so far into the body work of the car that its impossible to actually get your finger into that space to place the magnets once the screens are pushed into the proper place. As if this was not hard enough, Toyota placed a bar in the middle of the air intake hole, so you have to cut the screen covers into 2 halves, one half for the left hole (using 2 6.5" long strips) and one half for the right hole (using 2 5" long strips). Because the holes in the beam covering the air intake are only 2.5" high, that means the strips of mesh you insert cannot be more than 2.5" high. But what you REALLY need is a screen 4.5" high, the only problem is you cannot actually get a screen that wide into that space because the holes in the beam in front of the intake are smaller in size, that's why you have to insert 2 strips of screen, each 2.5" high. Yes, Toyota has really fu*ked up big time with this design ! First you place one 2.5" mesh strip over the hole, so it covers the lower half of the air intake hole. Then you take the second 2.5" mesh strip and place it over the hole, raising it upwards so it covers the upper half of the air intake hole. When you push it up it is pushed up and almost out of sight, so you have to do everything by feel, and using a small mirror to see what's happening. Doing all of this is an all-day job. But once you are finished there is no way in Hell any mouse is going to get through that wire mesh. The problem is that there are so many OTHER places around the car for those mice to build nests in, so just covering up the access to the ventilation system will just push them to build a nest somewhere else instead. But at least the insides of your car won't smell bad anymore. ---- Was a comment on the video below. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O9JruyHm89g

The only thing that I don't like is that the filter in the air cleaner is in the attic and not very accessible, so I don't do it myself. I would much rather be able to climb on a step ladder and unhook the ceiling grille to change the filter. Would it hurt if we put a filter there as well (like by restricting too much of the airflow) or help in any way? Would adding a filter there slow down the rate of how often we have to change the air cleaner one? (I think right now it is a once a year recommendation.)