One of the most crucial elements of maintaining your home’s heating and cooling system is the air filter, which removes airborne particulates that can damage your equipment and degrade indoor air quality.
When and How to Replace Air Filters
A standard air filter should never remain in the system for longer than three months. Often you’ll need to replace it much sooner, which makes it important to inspect it regularly. If you have a large family, pets or a lot of indoor smoke for any reason, your filter is likely to get dirty faster and need to be replaced as often as monthly. The same applies during the heaviest use times of the year.
Changing a filter is fairly intuitive; in most units they simply slide in and out of an easily located slot. If you need help changing the filter or finding the slot, you can consult your owner’s manual or an HVAC professional. Ensure that the replacement filter you buy is listed as an appropriate filter for your furnace, heat pump or A/C in its manual.
Why Your Air Filter Must be Clean
When it comes to the air in your home, your health comes first. The quality of indoor air can be seriously degraded by a variety of particulates, including mold spores, pet dander and hair, bacteria, viruses and even smoke in the air. A dirty air filter has a more difficult time removing dust and debris from indoor air, and much of this stuff will be more likely to get into your lungs.
There are also issues related to performance. Your forced-air system requires smooth airflow to work properly. A filter that’s clogged will force the motor to work harder to blow air through your equipment and ducts. This leads to energy waste, wear and tear, and eventual malfunctions and repairs.
If you need professional assistance maintaining the HVAC system in your Lorain area home, please contact us at Energy 1 Heating & Air Conditioning.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Lorain, Ohio about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about air filters and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
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Energy 1 Heating & Air Conditioning
1 (440) 246-5440
Serving the Lorain, OH Area