How Often Should Air Filters Be Replaced

Existence a homeowner comes with many responsibilities that you lot must carry out at the appropriate time to maintain your property. One such responsibility is replacing your HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system). Chances are high that your air filter is overdue for a alter.

Air filters are not designed to last forever, meaning you take to keep rails of the appointment when you installed them, so yous tin can know when information technology is time for a replacement. If you take too long to supercede your filter, information technology can go overloaded and collapse, causing more problems for your HVAC equipment and your comfort.

A complanate air filter can become lodged in your fan or make a big gap, causing air to float around the filter without it getting filtered. If your filter is not filtering the air, it can have adverse issues on your health and crusade animate bug, especially for people with pre-existing conditions.

How Often Should You lot Change Your Air Filter?

Now that yous know i air filter isn't going to last you for life, yous demand to ask the critical question, how oftentimes should you modify your air filter?

Determining when to change your air filter can be a little tricky for a couple of reasons. Every home's pattern is slightly different, automatically resulting in a different answer each time the question of air filters is raised.

The type of filter y'all buy can also gene in how often you supersede this essential equipment. Typically, information technology is recommended that yous change your filter every 30 days for cheaper fiberglass filters and anywhere from 6 months for higher-stop pleated fibers. Withal, these recommendations may not be the best idea if you lot have allergies, asthma, or live with pets.

When yous purchase a new filter, the packaging volition indicate how long it is expected to final. Still, the filter's expiry date should exist the maximum date to which you proceed that particular filter in. you should alter your filter before than the packaging suggests.

Fifty-fifty though the answer varies from home to home, you lot must get to know what works for your family to go on your filter performance properly.

A lot of factors are to be considered when determining how frequently your filter needs to be changed. Some of them include:

Asthma or Allergies

You should modify your dwelling house filter more than oftentimes if you endure from allergies or asthma. Respiratory issues make you much more sensitive to airborne particles, so you lot should change your air filter every 6 weeks to ensure your indoor air quality remains at its all-time.

If you permit excess dander, dust, and other contaminants to accumulate in your filter and discover their mode into your home, it can bear upon you negatively. Symptoms like terrible coughs, runny noses, sneezing, and others you would instead do without clogged air filters can result.

Seasonal Changes

During flu and allergy seasons, you should upgrade your filters to high-efficiency filters. When you lot begin to observe an increment in air particles or pollutants, your air filter should get changed more frequently.

Besides, during renovations, there is a probable chance that the amount of clay and dust circulating in the house will increment and cake upward your filter. In such a situation, your home will require a more frequent filter change.

Tip- If you notice that you need to vacuum your business firm more often than usual, it might be a sign that you need to check your filter a lot more than you usually would.

Pets

Having pets can influence how oft you lot modify your air filter. Pets cause an increase in dander, fur, and dust floating through the air in your home. These pollutants come up together and stop upward blocking the period of air in your filter.

If you have multiple pets, it can get even worse, and the build-upward of fur, dust, and dander can impede the running of your HVAC.

You lot should consider replacing your air filter every four to six weeks if you are a pet possessor.

House Occupancy

When your house is a vacation dwelling house where you lot only spend a pocket-sized corporeality of fourth dimension yearly, the rules are dissimilar. Due to the absenteeism of man activity during certain, fewer contaminants get trapped in your air filter.

The fewer the contaminants, the less often you lot need to change the air filter. Y'all tin prolong the periods between a filter replacement to a significant extent. Most times, vacation homes get a change in air filters every six months.

You can also pull off changing your air filter less frequently if you live alone and have no pets. The fewer people in a house, the less time it takes to clog your air filter.

Why Should You Change Your Air Filter?

Your house's heating and cooling system have an essential office to play in the overall condolement of your home. You lot do not desire to experience the sweltering heat of summertime without the convenience of air conditioning.

However, you might still exist tempted to ask, what difference does it make if I modify my filter regularly or not. If you even so are non convinced that regularly your air filter is a great idea, here are some reasons yous should replace information technology regularly.

Cut Repair Costs

Over time, your air filter accumulates dirt, dust, fur, and other contaminants that may be institute around your dwelling. Your once new, white, and make clean air filter will turn dusty and grey as it begins to spend months fin the render. This deterioration can have negative impacts on your HVAC organization.

Irresolute your air filter is benign to the smooth working of your HVAC system. A dirty air conditioner tin lead to the HVAC system undergoing actress work.

As time goes on, the strain on your unit will result in essential repairs or, even worse, cutting short the lifespan of said unit. Changing your air filter will help keep the parts of your air conditioner clean, preventing it from vesture and tear. Yous can relieve yourself money by simply changing your air filter routinely.

Conserve Electricity

During the summertime, your electricity bill tin go upwards in astronomical proportions. Changing your air filter tin assistance you cut downward your bill.

When your air filter is clogged, the HVAC unit requires a lot of extra work to circulate fresh air throughout your home; the actress work calls for more than electricity. More than electricity ways more bills.

Replacing your filter will help y'all reduce the amount you pay for electricity. Investing in a relatively inexpensive air filter and replacing the filter at the right fourth dimension tin can relieve yous a lot of money in repairs.

Better Air Quality

Studies have shown that the air in your home can be as much as two to five times more polluted than the air outdoors. This can pb to many symptoms that you may never even trace to your HVAC organization'due south overall working.

If you lot become headaches frequently when yous are cooped upwardly inside for long or suffer from severe allergies when you encounter low indoor air quality, it could result from dirty air filters.

When your air filter is make clean, you do not have to breathe in particles and other different contaminants. This volition ultimately result in a healthier, higher quality life.

How Do You Know It's Time to Change Your Air Filter?

An air filter's task is to trap clay, and so any use of the filter will lead to its accumulating clay. The large question is, how exercise you determine your filter has trapped more than enough dirt and requires a modify?

There is no specific guideline, but if your filter has only a small layer of clay and the filter material is still visible beneath it, your filter is fine. The moment it gets more that, information technology is time to change out the filter. If you cannot see the filter material due to clay becoming thick enough to encompass nearly of the filter's surface, it is a sign that your HVAC has housed the filter for too long.

You should inspect your air filter every calendar week. If you discover a musty smell or that the filter is covered in dust change it. Filters are relatively inexpensive, and so if you lot doubt, information technology is e'er better to supplant information technology earlier than let it wait too long.

How to Modify Your Air Filter

Replacing an air filter is a lot easier than y'all might think. It is a very straightforward process if you follow the following steps:

Ensure that you turn off your HVAC system before you begin; this is very important.
Find where your air filter is – you will well-nigh likely discover your air filter where the air is sucked dorsum from your home into your system (this is known every bit the return), which is either on your ceiling or wall with a grille covering it. If you practise not find information technology there, it will exist where your air handling unit of measurement is located, typically in your attic, basement, or closet. You volition observe a small box that takes air into the unit.
Take out the grille or open the box – if y'all own a grille, you will most likely find tabs that you lot can pull up, so you can take out the filter without needing a screwdriver.
Locate the filter – the filter should carry the size or a model number printed on it to help you identify information technology and purchase the right 1. Ensure that you buy the correct size of the filter.
Take out the dirty filter – notice the old filter when you have information technology out. If it is more contaminated than usual, this means you should change your filter more often than you lot already do. Delight take note of gaps in the filter equally these are a sign that your filter is too small-scale, and y'all need to supercede it with a bigger one.
Put in your new filter, close the box, or put back the grill – this is the concluding stride. Make sure you note the date when you change your filter to proceed runway and know when next to alter the filter.

How to Purchase a New HVAC Filter

Y'all probably know that yous can find important information such as size printed on your current filter. Still, you might still be unsure about what type of filter to purchase. Here are a few tips that tin can exist of assistance:

Avoid buying the cheapest filter you can find
You should buy a pleated filter with a sturdy wire mesh supporting it and preventing information technology from collapsing.
Ideally, your filter should not take a very loftier MERV (minimum efficiency reporting value) rating. A quality filter should have a MERV rating above eight or nine. This blazon of filter will take out about of the minor particles that tin can trigger allergies and other respiratory issues.

If you notwithstanding feel unsure about picking a filter yourself, you can e'er seek professional person help.

The MERV Scale; How to Rate an Air Filter

For most people, the nigh challenging part of changing your air filter is figuring out what kind of replacement you should get. This is why virtually companies refer to a particular scale while measuring the efficiency of their air filters. This is called the MERV calibration.

The Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value scale gives professionals a compatible standard to use when rating their air filters' quality. The MERV is measured by exposing a make clean air filter to different sizes of particles. Each size of the particle is then forced through the air filter half dozen times using a sprayer. About twelve other particles are used to decide which filters are best at trapping different air pollutants.

Based on this scale, there are 16 dissimilar categories your air filter tin belong to, these are:

MERV 1-4

These are the lowest ratings on the scare, and they trap the least number of contaminants from the air in your home. MERV 1-four filters can trap common particles such every bit carpet fibers, grit mites, pollen, etc. from the air.

Like their price point, their efficiency is extremely low. This filter grade is excellent for homes on a upkeep where in that location are no occupants with respiratory problems.

MERV5-viii

MERV 5-eight filters are a bit more than constructive than those in the MERV 1-four category. They tin piece of work effectively in mold, finer dust such equally cement, and fifty-fifty droplets spray particles. Such filters are of higher quality and cost more than the main category.

Nonetheless, you should know that these filters are unable to trap particles smaller than one micron.

Co-ordinate to experts, you should become an air filter with a MERV score from 6 to 8 for the best operation. These filters are affordable and permit your HVAC organisation to part conveniently without whatsoever strain. When your unit of measurement operates smoothly, information technology keeps your bill as low as possible while keeping excellent air quality.

MERV 9-12

This class of filter is considered very high efficiency. It tin can trap tiny particles from the air, as piffling as auto emissions. If you utilize filters in this category, your HVAC system has to practise some actress work to circulate cooled air in your domicile. The weave of the air filters that fall in this class makes it a lot more difficult for the HVAC organisation to function seamlessly.

MERV nine-12 filters are perfect for people who take allergies; the downside is that information technology may negatively reflect your electricity neb.

MERV xiii-xvi

A filter of this rating is classed maximum efficiency. They are more suited for commercial buildings than a abode heating and cooling organization.

The filters in this group can filter particles as small as 0.3 microns, such as tobacco smoke and bacteria.

Other Considerations

Hither are a few other things you might want to consider when buying an air filter:

Size

The return sizes differ from home to home so ensure you check the size of your current filter and so yous buy the correct fit.

Reusability

If you do not particularly fancy the idea of having to throw out your air filter after every few weeks or months, you might desire to invest in a washable air filter. Although this may be actress work for you lot, it is environmentally friendly.

Using a washable filter is also beneficial because you tin change information technology every bit regularly every bit you lot similar while still saving money on air filters. Washing your filter on a more regular footing will increase the quality of air inside your domicile.

Pleats

The more than pleats an air filter has, the college the chances of removing air pollutants from your indoor air. In situations where you cannot find the MERV rating on the air filter packaging, you can scout for a filter with a lot of pleats per foot.

Pleats are a cracking way to gauge the overall efficiency of an air filter.

Conclusion

You lot must know what to expect when information technology comes to changing your air filter. Each home has dissimilar needs when information technology comes to HVAC so remember to consider your lifestyle and the rate of occupancy in your home when replacing your air filter.

Your HVAC's lifespan and health will be grateful to yous if you adhere to the proper guidelines regarding how frequently y'all should modify your air filter. Check your air filter today, supervene upon information technology if it is overdue and enjoy fresh, make clean air in your home.