Guide: How Often Do You Change Air Filters?

Being a homeowner comes with many responsibilities that you must carry out at the advisable fourth dimension to maintain your holding. Ane such responsibleness is replacing your HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning arrangement). Chances are high that your air filter is overdue for a modify.

Air filters are not designed to last forever, pregnant you accept to continue rails of the engagement when yous installed them, and then you can know when it is fourth dimension for a replacement. If you take too long to replace your filter, it can get overloaded and collapse, causing more than issues for your HVAC equipment and your comfort.

A collapsed air filter can get lodged in your fan or make a large gap, causing air to float around the filter without it getting filtered. If your filter is non filtering the air, it can accept adverse issues on your wellness and cause breathing issues, especially for people with pre-existing conditions.

How Oftentimes Should You Change Your Air Filter?

Now that you know i air filter isn't going to last yous for life, y'all need to ask the disquisitional question, how often should you modify your air filter?

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

The blazon of filter you lot buy can besides gene in how often yous replace this essential equipment. Typically, it is recommended that you change your filter every 30 days for cheaper fiberglass filters and anywhere from half dozen months for higher-cease pleated fibers. Yet, these recommendations may not be the all-time thought if you have allergies, asthma, or live with pets.

When you purchase a new filter, the packaging volition indicate how long it is expected to concluding. Nonetheless, the filter'southward expiry date should be the maximum date to which you proceed that particular filter in. yous should change your filter earlier than the packaging suggests.

Even though the answer varies from home to abode, you lot must go to know what works for your family to keep your filter functioning 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 change your home filter more often if you suffer from allergies or asthma. Respiratory problems make you much more sensitive to airborne particles, so you should alter your air filter every six weeks to ensure your indoor air quality remains at its best.

If you let backlog dander, dust, and other contaminants to accrue in your filter and find their way into your home, it tin can touch on you negatively. Symptoms like terrible coughs, runny noses, sneezing, and others you would instead do without clogged air filters tin can result.

Seasonal Changes

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

Also, during renovations, there is a likely adventure that the corporeality of clay and dust circulating in the house will increase and block up your filter. In such a situation, your home will require a more frequent filter change.

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

Pets

Having pets tin influence how frequently you change your air filter. Pets crusade an increase in dander, fur, and dust floating through the air in your home. These pollutants come together and finish up blocking the flow of air in your filter.

If y'all accept multiple pets, it tin get even worse, and the build-up of fur, grit, and dander tin impede the running of your HVAC.

Y'all should consider replacing your air filter every four to six weeks if you are a pet owner.

Firm Occupancy

When your business firm is a vacation home where you only spend a small amount of fourth dimension yearly, the rules are different. Due to the absence of human activeness during sure, fewer contaminants get trapped in your air filter.

The fewer the contaminants, the less often you need to alter the air filter. Y'all tin can prolong the periods betwixt a filter replacement to a significant extent. Nigh times, vacation homes become a alter in air filters every six months.

You tin can besides pull off changing your air filter less oftentimes if you live alone and have no pets. The fewer people in a business firm, the less fourth dimension it takes to clog your air filter.

Why Should You lot Alter Your Air Filter?

Your house'due south heating and cooling system have an essential office to play in the overall condolement of your home. You do not want to experience the sweltering heat of summer without the convenience of ac.

Withal, yous might nonetheless exist tempted to ask, what difference does information technology make if I modify my filter regularly or not. If you still are not convinced that regularly your air filter is a neat idea, hither are some reasons yous should supercede it regularly.

Cut Repair Costs

Over fourth dimension, your air filter accumulates dirt, dust, fur, and other contaminants that may be institute effectually your home. Your once new, white, and clean air filter volition turn dusty and grey as information technology begins to spend months fin the return. This deterioration can have negative impacts on your HVAC arrangement.

Changing your air filter is beneficial to the smoothen working of your HVAC system. A dingy air conditioner tin can lead to the HVAC system undergoing actress work.

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

Conserve Electricity

During the summertime, your electricity neb can go up in astronomical proportions. Irresolute your air filter can assist you cut down your bill.

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

Replacing your filter will help you reduce the amount you pay for electricity. Investing in a relatively inexpensive air filter and replacing the filter at the correct time can save you a lot of money in repairs.

Improve Air Quality

Studies accept shown that the air in your home can exist every bit much as ii to five times more polluted than the air outdoors. This can lead to many symptoms that you may never fifty-fifty trace to your HVAC system's overall working.

If y'all get headaches ofttimes when yous are cooped upwards inside for long or suffer from severe allergies when y'all come across low indoor air quality, it could result from muddied air filters.

When your air filter is clean, you lot exercise not have to breathe in particles and other dissimilar contaminants. This will ultimately result in a healthier, higher quality life.

How Do You Know It's Fourth dimension to Alter Your Air Filter?

An air filter's job is to trap dirt, and then any use of the filter will lead to its accumulating dirt. The big question is, how do you decide your filter has trapped more than enough clay and requires a alter?

There is no specific guideline, but if your filter has merely a pocket-sized layer of clay and the filter material is still visible beneath it, your filter is fine. The moment it gets more than that, it is time to change out the filter. If y'all cannot run into the filter material due to clay becoming thick enough to embrace most of the filter'south surface, it is a sign that your HVAC has housed the filter for likewise long.

You lot should inspect your air filter every calendar week. If you detect a musty smell or that the filter is covered in dust alter it. Filters are relatively inexpensive, so if you doubt, it is e'er better to supersede information technology before than let information technology await too long.

How to Modify Your Air Filter

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

Ensure that you turn off your HVAC organisation before y'all begin; this is very important.
Find where your air filter is – you volition most likely find your air filter where the air is sucked back from your dwelling into your system (this is known as the render), which is either on your ceiling or wall with a grille covering information technology. If you exercise not observe it in that location, it will be where your air handling unit is located, typically in your attic, basement, or closet. Y'all will notice a small box that takes air into the unit.
Have out the grille or open the box – if you own a grille, yous will most likely notice tabs that you lot tin pull upwardly, so you tin can take out the filter without needing a screwdriver.
Locate the filter – the filter should conduct the size or a model number printed on information technology to help you lot identify it and buy the correct one. Ensure that you buy the correct size of the filter.
Take out the dingy filter – observe the quondam filter when you take information technology out. If information technology is more contaminated than usual, this means you should modify your filter more than often than you already do. Please take note of gaps in the filter as these are a sign that your filter is too small, and you need to supplant information technology with a bigger one.
Put in your new filter, close the box, or put back the grill – this is the final footstep. Make certain yous annotation the appointment when you change your filter to keep rail and know when side by side to change the filter.

How to Buy a New HVAC Filter

Y'all probably know that y'all can discover of import information such as size printed on your current filter. Nonetheless, you might still exist unsure nearly what type of filter to purchase. Hither are a few tips that can be of help:

Avert buying the cheapest filter you can find
You should buy a pleated filter with a sturdy wire mesh supporting it and preventing it from collapsing.
Ideally, your filter should not have a very loftier MERV (minimum efficiency reporting value) rating. A quality filter should have a MERV rating above viii or nine. This type of filter will take out nearly of the small particles that can trigger allergies and other respiratory bug.

If you still feel unsure virtually picking a filter yourself, you can always seek professional assistance.

The MERV Calibration; How to Rate an Air Filter

For virtually people, the nearly challenging part of changing your air filter is figuring out what kind of replacement you should get. This is why most 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 uniform standard to utilize 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 and then forced through the air filter six times using a sprayer. About twelve other particles are used to determine which filters are all-time at trapping different air pollutants.

Based on this calibration, there are sixteen unlike categories your air filter tin can vest to, these are:

MERV 1-four

These are the lowest ratings on the scare, and they trap the least number of contaminants from the air in your abode. MERV 1-4 filters tin can trap common particles such as carpeting fibers, dust mites, pollen, etc. from the air.

Similar their price indicate, their efficiency is extremely low. This filter grade is first-class for homes on a budget where at that place are no occupants with respiratory issues.

MERV5-8

MERV 5-viii filters are a bit more than effective than those in the MERV 1-4 category. They tin can work effectively in mold, finer dust such as cement, and even aerosol spray particles. Such filters are of higher quality and toll more than than the principal category.

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

Co-ordinate to experts, you should get an air filter with a MERV score from 6 to viii for the best performance. These filters are affordable and allow your HVAC system to function conveniently without any strain. When your unit of measurement operates smoothly, information technology keeps your beak as depression as possible while keeping excellent air quality.

MERV ix-12

This class of filter is considered very high efficiency. Information technology can trap tiny particles from the air, every bit picayune equally auto emissions. If you utilize filters in this category, your HVAC system has to do some extra work to broadcast cooled air in your habitation. The weave of the air filters that fall in this class makes it a lot more hard for the HVAC organization to function seamlessly.

MERV 9-12 filters are perfect for people who have allergies; the downside is that it may negatively reflect your electricity bill.

MERV 13-xvi

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

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

Other Considerations

Here 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 so you buy the right fit.

Reusability

If y'all practice non particularly fancy the idea of having to throw out your air filter after every few weeks or months, you lot might want to invest in a washable air filter. Although this may be extra work for yous, information technology is environmentally friendly.

Using a washable filter is also beneficial because you can modify it equally regularly as you like while withal saving money on air filters. Washing your filter on a more regular ground volition increase the quality of air inside your home.

Pleats

The more pleats an air filter has, the higher the chances of removing air pollutants from your indoor air. In situations where yous cannot find the MERV rating on the air filter packaging, y'all tin lookout for a filter with a lot of pleats per foot.

Pleats are a smashing manner to gauge the overall efficiency of an air filter.

Conclusion

You must know what to expect when it comes to changing your air filter. Each home has different needs when it comes to HVAC and then recollect to consider your lifestyle and the rate of occupancy in your domicile when replacing your air filter.

Your HVAC's lifespan and wellness will exist grateful to you if you adhere to the proper guidelines regarding how oft yous should change your air filter. Check your air filter today, replace information technology if it is overdue and enjoy fresh, clean air in your habitation.

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Source: https://www.homedit.com/how-often-to-change-air-filter/