The Importance of Replacing Air Filters

 

Being a good homeowner means, of course, keeping your home in good repair regularly and paying attention to basic maintenance. This includes keeping an eye on things that aren’t expensive to do on a regular basis, but which can have skyrocketing costs if left untended to.

A common task like this is changing out the filter of your home’s HVAC system. It’s an easy enough job, doesn’t cost much, and, if done every three months or so, can assure that your house remains comfortable, while sparing you a potentially huge expense down the road.

Why Is It Important to Change my Air Filters?

Your normal home has some type of heat pump or furnace, and the many of the newer ones have a combined heating, ventilation and air conditioning, systems, aka “HVAC” system. Each one of these uses some type of screen or filter to keep larger airborne particulates from entering and clogging up the sensitive machines in the home.

Any system which has dirty filters can have pressure drops which will lead to a reduction in air flow or a blow out, and this could lead to a complete lack of any air filtration. This situation can lead to a home’s system having to work harder to maintain a cold or warm environment, depending on the season.

And, like any kind of system, any parts that have to work harder make the system as a whole less efficient, resulting in a possible total failure, which then, obviously, leads to repair and replacement costs.

Air Filter ReplacementNot only that, but an unclean filter can get damp when exposed to condensation. This almost always leads to the growth of mold that can spread through your home via the HVAC system. This, obviously, can lead to some mild or severe health problems, and again, also lead to big repair costs in the long run.

How Often Should It Be Replaced?

Besides the screen, your HVAC furnace should be checked out by a service professional once a year, ideally. They’ll check for things like dry or cracked belts, gapped duct work, and rusted components such as fans and coils. To the untrained eye, these things may appear to be “okay”, when they are in fact close to contributing to a costly system failure.

But, as we’ve been saying, if you have an HVAC system that gets year round usage, the easiest thing any home owner can do for themselves is to change the filters every three months.

Is your Bellingham HVAC system working properly? Call Eagle Plumbing and Heating at (360) 318-9999, to get more information on why you should change your air filter.