How To Change Heating Filter

Home furnace air filter replacement - Thomas & Galbraith Heating, Cooling, & Plumbing

Cincinnati homes require regular upkeep and maintenance throughout the twelvemonth. Changing furnace filters is i disquisitional chore that is often skipped – to the detriment of your comfort and the performance of your home's heating and cooling equipment! With a muddied filter in place, you risk compromising your comfort, energy costs, and HVAC system

Thomas & Galbraith's NATE-certified heating and cooling professionals share why irresolute furnace filters must be done. Learn the truthful purpose of this system component, how often changing furnace filters needs to exist performed, and the issues that arise when you skip this task.

From heating and cooling system maintenance that ensures a make clean filter to HVAC repair that counteracts the problems caused by a dirty one, nosotros provide the services you need for a comfortable dwelling house yr-round. Phone call Thomas & Galbraith today to schedule service.

What Does a Furnace Filter Do?

Your furnace filter traps airborne contaminants to clean your air, correct? While yep, information technology does do that, that's not exactly its job – despite what almost people believe.

The main function of a furnace filter is to trap airborne contaminants non for air quality purposes, simply to keep them out of your heating and cooling system. Yet, because the filter removes contaminants for the system's benefit, air quality also benefits from their removal.

How Often Is Changing Furnace Filters Necessary?

Irresolute furnace filters is a job that's frequency varies from one firm to the adjacent. How oft this task needs to be performed is profoundly dependent on the type of furnace filter in place. If you lot have a summit down the filter replacement alley at your favorite hardware shop, you lot'll see in that location are a lot of options to cull from – lots of different filter types to touch changing frequency.

Irresolute furnace filters needs to exist completed every month to every year – merely like there is a bang-up range of filters, there's a pretty wide range to how ofttimes they need to exist replaced. Luckily, irresolute furnace filters doesn't depend on a guess. The filter's manufacturer provides the recommended replacement frequency within the product information that's included when you lot buy a new filter.

To requite you lot a starting point for what frequency you lot're looking at for changing furnace filters, size matters. Thicker filters have more media available to capture contaminants, so a 5-inch filter requires less frequent changes than a 1-inch filter. Filter efficiency likewise has an impact – this is expressed as MERV, which stands for minimum efficiency reporting value .

In full general, this is how often irresolute furnace filters needs to exist done:

For 1- to 2-inch filters, replace them every 1 to 3 months
For 3- to 4-inch filters, supercede them every half-dozen to 9 months
For 5- to six-inch filters, replace them every 9 to 12 months

More Factors that Affect Frequency of Changing Furnace Filters

Every bit we mentioned, size and efficiency are two attributes that affect the frequency changing furnace filters is performed. In addition, in that location are various factors specific to your Cincinnati area household that accept a greater touch on on how frequently you actually need a new filter.

Dwelling Occupancy

The number of people living in a abode affects the useful service life of a furnace filter. In a big household, changing furnace filters is done on a more frequent basis than homes with just one or 2 occupants. People introduce many contaminants to the home environs, then the more people there are in your home, the more contaminants there are for the filter to grab.

Hirsuite Family unit Members

Pets are another major contributor of contaminants into the indoor air supply. Pets shed fur and dander, which are picked up by airflow and circulated throughout the home past the HVAC system. For every furry family member living in your home, a filter's useful service life is reduced by approximately 30 days, then you lot're changing furnace filters more often.

Indoor Air Quality

If you accept air quality issues nowadays in the home, your furnace filter isn't going to concluding as long equally information technology does in a dwelling with good indoor air quality. Indoor air quality equipment like air purifiers and air cleaners reduce contaminant book so in that location'south fewer particles for your furnace filter to capture – in homes without this equipment, the furnace filter is the only line of defense force against airborne contaminants, so the filter fills up faster.

Allergies

If members of your household endure from allergies or asthma, changing furnace filters should be done on a more frequent basis. Doing so helps ensure contaminants that crusade symptoms are removed from your indoor air supply.

Heating & Cooling Usage

When your home'due south heating and cooling equipment is heavily operated, filters take a shorter useful service life – air is circulated more frequently, then the filter has more opportunities to pick up contaminants and become chock-full. In the summer and wintertime, homeowners are typically irresolute furnace filters more than often than they are in the fall and spring.

Dirty Furnace Filter Disasters

When irresolute furnace filters is forgotten or skipped, various problems ascend in Cincinnati households. Muddy furnace filters spell disaster for heating and cooling equipment, abode condolement, and indoor air quality.

HVAC System Harm

Heating and cooling equipment like furnaces and air handlers are filled with many delicate components. Without filtration, airborne dust, dirt, and other debris enters the various chambers of the unit of measurement and settles on its components. Contaminants accumulate and worsen the performance of the equipment, even causing impairment to components.
When filters are chock-full merely the HVAC system continues to run, air doesn't motility through the organisation properly. With the dirty filter blocking its path, heating and cooling equipment expends more energy to push air along. This extra work stresses the organisation'south components, using more than energy and damaging equipment.
Airflow blockage caused by a dirty filter raises the temperature inside the HVAC equipment, causing it to overheat. After it cools, it starts back up again, only the trouble persists – this is an issue known as short-cycling, and dirty filters are the most common cause. Curt-cycling leads to HVAC system damage that requires repair and early on total system failures, in addition to excess energy consumption, college utility bills, and macerated indoor condolement.
As contaminants menstruum through the HVAC arrangement due to a dirty filter, they collect within the condensate drainage components and clogs form. Clogs stop condensate from draining out of the home, and it may spill over which results in h2o impairment to HVAC equipment and nearby areas. Plus, excess condensation increases indoor humidity levels which disrupts comfort.

Poor Comfort & Air Quality

Because airflow is restricted when changing furnace filters is forgotten, living areas do not receive the proper amount of heating and cooling. It becomes hard to maintain comfort levels and homeowners often detect hot and cold spots.
When the filter is covered in contaminants, at that place is no more surface area left to trap new contaminants passing through. Therefore, those contaminants remain in the air supply and move back into your habitation where they cause allergy symptoms, respiratory issues, actual irritations, and dirtier surfaces no matter how often you clean!

Never Forget Another Filter Change!

Changing furnace filters is then very important, not but for your HVAC organization but for your household. It's all besides easy to skip a filter change when your HVAC equipment is tucked abroad out of sight, but this important chore must be made a priority.

It's smart to check your filter monthly to assess its condition. Sometimes, your system may require irresolute furnace filters early on, merely it'southward difficult to tell if you never await for yourself! Have a peek at the filter in one case a month and supercede it when you notice its surface media is completely covered in contaminants.

Because changing furnace filters is so important, here are a few strategies to assistance ensure y'all recollect to perform this essential home maintenance task.

Mark monthly filter checks as well as changes at the appropriate interval on your wall agenda or within your day planner.

If you prefer your smartphone'southward agenda app, schedule reminders with an warning that sounds to catch your attention.

Link checking and irresolute furnace filters with other important tasks you lot consummate each month. As the filter'due south status can touch on how much energy the system consumes, check information technology when you pay your monthly utility bill! Do not file that nib away until you cheque or change your filter.

Thomas & Galbraith Delivers the Care Your HVAC Organization Needs

Changing furnace filters on a regular basis has great impacts on dwelling house comfort and indoor air quality, too equally the performance, free energy efficiency, and longevity of your HVAC arrangement. Ensure your comfort system receives the professional person care information technology needs – maintenance melody ups remove debris and takes intendance of filter changes. If the damage of a dirty filter has already been done, our skilled technicians work to counteract the issue to restore performance.

Call Thomas & Galbraith today to schedule heating and cooling services, including HVAC repair and heating and cooling tune ups.