The Importance of Air Filter In Your Home's HVAC

Changing your HVAC’s air filter on a timely basis is more important than most people realize. It can affect air quality, the durability of your HVAC system, and even its power consumption. Similarly, you need to careful about the regularity with which you change the air filter in your HVAC system, since things like air filter quality and allergic reactions can have an impact on how often you need to replace the air filter.

In this article, we will see why your HVAC's air filter needs to be changed regularly, and how often the air filter should be changed for best results.  Currently, you will find a wide selection of air filters in the market. These products vary depending on the benefits they have to offer HVAC system owners. However, regardless of the kind of air filter you are using, you will have to change it regularly in order for your HVAC system to function optimally.   

1. Reduced Maintenance

Costs If you do not want to spend a fortune repairing your HVAC system, then make sure that you replace the air filter as often as necessary. While at it, always ensure you get the right air filter size and brand for your HVAC system. While forgetting to change your air filter is pretty bad, using the wrong size and brand can be equally bad for your HVAC system.   

That is why you not only need to change the air filter regularly and do regular checks to ensure that it is in perfect working order, but also use the right type of air filter. Many HVAC systems fail because their owners do not pay attention to these important factors.   These systems can cost thousands of dollars, and so can the repairs they need whenever they run into issues due to poor maintenance. In fact, without proper air filter maintenance, the failure of these systems is virtually unavoidable.

2. Healthier Air Around the Home

One of the roles of your HVAC system is to supply you with clean and fresh air. Therefore, when you fail to do proper air filter replacements when they become due, the air you and your family will be breathing will be unhealthy.   

The last thing you need is a system that continuously blasts dirty air full of dust and other allergens around the home. Such a scenario can even bring about allergic reactions and aggravate breathing conditions such as asthma. For this reason, you have to ensure that your air filter is clean so that the air your HVAC system circulates through your home makes the environment healthier for you, and not the opposite.   

3. Greater Operational Efficiency

Additionally, changing your air filter will ensure that the HVAC operates with a greater level of efficiency. Basically, when an HVAC system has a dirty air filter, it will use more energy. Consequently, ensuring that the air filter is clean will mean that it will use less power when purifying the air around the home.   

You can reduce the power consumption of your HVAC system by up to 15 per cent by ensuring that the air filter is always clean. Considering how important these systems are, changing the air filter on a regular basis to ensure greater efficiency can do plenty to lower your power bills.   

In fact, when you fail to maintain your air filter properly, you will be failing in your responsibility to make the environment better. HVAC systems consume a lot of power, and anything that makes them use more power than they need to obviously adds to the greenhouse gas problem our environment has been struggling with for decades. So, proper maintenance of the air filter in your HVAC system will ensure that you play your role in keeping the environment healthier for everyone.

How Regularly Should You Change the Air Filter?

This is not an easy question, since each home is different. However, it is an important question that you have to address as an HVAC system owner. Basically, a number of factors will dictate how often you need to change your air filter.

These include the type of air filter you are using. In this regard, some air filters are of better quality than others. Therefore, if the air filter brand you are using can last for much longer before requiring a replacement, you can wait a little longer before changing it.  

Similarly, you have to take into consideration an issue like the air quality in your home. If you live in a relatively dusty area, you should change your air filter more regularly than someone who lives in a place where the air is much cleaner.   

Another issue to consider is the allergic issues facing members of your family or yourself. Having allergies means having a greater sensitivity to air quality. Consequently, an air filter change might be required before the expected period of service is over when the air is not clean enough to prevent allergic reactions.   

Also, it is worth considering when trying to determine how often you need to change your air filter is the number of pets in your home. Generally, pets introduce a lot of contaminants into a home, and the more of them you have in your home, the more often you need to change your air filter.   Obviously, in addition to the number of pets in a home, you also need to take into consideration the number of people in the household. The more people there are in the house, the more the contaminants, and the more regularly you need to change the air filter in your HVAC system.

Finally, take into consideration what the manufacturers recommend with regard to certain air filters. For instance, some brands recommend that you make a change every 30 days. In other cases, you might be asked to change the air filter every 60 days. Still, there are cases where the air filters are expected to last for up to 12 months without a change. However, an average suburban home should have its HVAC system’s air filter changed after about 90 days.  

Conclusion  

Changing the air filter in your HVAC system is more important than most people realize. These benefits can be experienced at a personal level since doing proper and regular air filter changes will keep the financial costs of running an HVAC system low.   Additionally, when these systems get regular air filter replacements, they are better suited to providing the healthy air you and your household needs.

Another reason to do regular air filter changes is that the environment is better off for it. That is because HVAC systems running on dirty air filters consume considerably more power, and this means they contribute more to the greenhouse gas problem our world is already experiencing at the moment.   So, proper and regular air filter changes are very important.