It’s Time to Change Your Home’s Air Filters

Fall signals that it’s time to change air filters in your home’s HVAC system. These filters are the first line of dense your equipment has to protect it from the damage that dust and dirt cause.

Anything mechanical or electronic is particularly vulnerable to airborne particulates. Besides coating the components, the particles can work their way into them and cause excessive wear on the parts. Over time, either of these conditions can cause serious issues that include:

High energy bills

Whether you’re heating or cooling, a dirty filter slows the airflow through the air handler and it takes the system longer to condition your home. It runs longer, which increases the energy it uses and adds wear and tear to the parts.

Early part failure

When dust covers the parts inside the air handler, it acts as insulation. Combustion furnaces use a heat exchanger to warm the air the blower fan sends into the air handler. The dust inhibits some of the heat transfer between the heat exchanger and the air.

Over time, the excessive heat can crack the heat exchanger, making it possible for carbon monoxide to escape into your home’s air through the cracks. This simple failure to change air filters in the winter could force you to replace your furnace prematurely.

A cracked heat exchanger must be replaced or repaired by law, and in most cases, it’s less expensive to replace the system rather than repairing it. In the summer, excessive dust on the evaporator coil keeps it excessively cold, which could freeze it over. Besides the flooding around the air handler, a frozen evaporator coil can burn out the outdoor compressor, your cooling system’s most expensive part.

Voided warranties

Failure to replace the air filters could cost you a valid HVAC warranty. HVAC experts can tell the difference between a system run with a clean filter and one where it’s been neglected.

It’s so easy to change air filters and it’s also an essential part of HVAC system maintenance. To learn more, contact Energy 1 Heating & Air Conditioning, providing trusted HVAC services for Lorain-area homeowners.

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 TOPIC and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Guide or call us at 440-201-2959.

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