I think cleaning is a good idea, but don't think you need to go
overboard.
I had a window A/C for 40 years and never cleaned the coils/fins etc.
Every summer evening, I open the windows and suck 3500CFM of
unfiltered air into the house. I don't get too worried about a few
extra spores coming in thru the HRV.
Since my coroplast is welded together, it ain't coming apart.
I just stick it in a bucket of dilute bleach and hoze it out.
That's one advantage of having a small core that just slides out.
And if I pop out the fans, I can dunk the whole shebang in the bucket.
I live in about 8000 cubic feet of my house. 60CFM would give
an air change in just over 2 hours, plus the other leakage. That's
plenty for me.
If you have 3 kids, six cats and glue plastic model airplanes for a hobby,
you'll want a lot more.
I have one of those blowers that are used for blow-up bouncy-castle
things. And a smaller centrifugal blower with a 6" output port
and stalls at 250Pa. And I saved the old furnace blower that can do
1000CFM. All my experiments have convinced me that I want the
back pressure to be as low as possible. It costs a lot of energy/money
to move air at high pressure.
Keep the pressure low and the volume low. Don't make the air change
direction any more than you have to.
If you fart, open a window.
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