How Often Should Furnace Filters Be Replaced

How Oftentimes Should Furnace Filters Be Changed?

How Often Should Furnace Filters Be Changed?

I have been in the residential/light commercial HVAC business for thirty years. I grew upwardly in a sheet metallic fabrication shop and have installed, serviced, sold and helped people cull new systems to best fit their needs and lifestyle. I expect forward to helping you selection the all-time fit for your home!

About This Article

Furnace filters do a lot of good, simply are seldom replaced when they should exist. Dirty filters tin can lead to expensive repairs and bad indoor air. When should they be replaced?

The filter is perchance the to the lowest degree appreciated office of an HVAC system. It does its chore quietly while it remains out of sight. It rids the air of harmful particles, keeping your family prophylactic and healthy.

Filters can also keep dust bunnies at bay, rid your business firm of bacteria, eliminate cigarette smoke and smog, and help get rid of the dander from your lovable cats and dogs.

This article addresses these tireless workhorses, explaining their various types and prices, how often they demand to be changed, and why information technology's and so important to supplant them when they're muddy.

When Should You Change Your Furnace Filters?

The easy reply to the question of when to change your filters: whenever they accept lost their effectiveness. Clean or replace them when they're so dirty, they've stopped working. Visually yous can tell when it starts to load up. It'due south helpful to accept a clean ane to compare information technology to.

It's non uncommon to discover a 20-year-old furnace that'southward had the aforementioned ane-inch filter in it for 20 years, and the blower cycle is caked with dirt. That ways there'south probable clay on the heat exchanger, there's dirt on the evaporator coil, and your furnace has lost efficiency.

That dust and pollen will and then sheet back through the ducts again, keeping that indoor air just as dirty as though there was no filter at all. In whatever organisation, cleaner is better.

You tin't change your filter too often. If you think your filters are expensive, think of the stress it might be causing to your $10,000 system.

Some of the cheapest filters demand to exist replaced every threescore-90 days. Some others recommend twice a year, or fifty-fifty once a yr. We recommend looking at your filters before the due date and replace/clean them when necessary. Why? Considering your air ducts may exist dirty (it happens to the best of us), and that dirt tin can air current up on your furnace quickly, for case. A filter that is rated to be inverse after six months may need to be replaced after only 4 months.

Why Should You Replace Your Filters?

Changing your air filter on a regular basis volition improve your indoor air quality, improve your health, reduce the amount of grit and dander in the air, and help your HVAC system be more efficient.

For allergy and asthma sufferers who would benefit the about from higher-end filtration systems, make clean air can make a huge divergence.

Muddy filters increase static pressure. Besides much static pressure can cause strain on your system, reducing its performance, and can result in wasted energy. If left untreated, it can consequence in premature failure of the organization. It strains every aspect of your HVAC, from the blower motor to the ducts.

A lot of the one-inch filters that you can go from Home Depot and Lowe's are cheap filters that might be a MERV 4 or 5 or lower. Simply the trouble is there's non much filtering surface there, and it loads up very quickly. The filter will say it needs to exist changed in 30-xc days, but in practice, 90 days is probably far also long.

The cheapest one-inch filters, the ones that say change information technology 90 days, well, y'all can apply it for 90 days and it doesn't grab very much. The pleated ones, they say to change them every xxx days. If y'all use a pleated filter, you should change it every 30 days when the atmospheric condition is hot or cold (when your HVAC is more active), and every 60 days when it'southward milder (and your HVAC isn't working very much).

The media air cleaner is a iv-inch filter that commonly doesn't need to be replaced for about 6-12 months. If you took it out of its frame and stretched it flat, it might be twenty, 25 feet long, whereas a one-inch filter, even if it's pleated, might be a human foot and a half. The media filter has much more material, which means it tin can catch more junk.

Four Inch Filter

Can You Modify Your Filters Yourself?

More often than not speaking, the average homeowner is capable of changing their filter, though sometimes the organisation is in the attic, or in a clamber space, and the homeowner can't reach it easily.

The standard filter most people have is a ane-inch filter that yous tin slide in and out. Sometimes you have to take the bottom door off of your furnace to reach it. And sometimes at that place'due south a wire that keeps the filter in place.

When you become to change your filter, the equipment should be off. Yous shouldn't accept the blower running. Sometimes a filter has been blown in by the return air, so when you try to pull it out, it catches. Yous have to slide something in in that location, say a table pocketknife or a putty knife, and reach in and pull the filter away from the furnace to guide it out.

You need to make certain the arrows of the new filter are pointing toward the furnace; that's the management the airflow moves. A few people miss that.

How Are Filters' Effectiveness Rated?

You'll often come across a MERV Rating (Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value) assigned to filters based on how efficiently they catch particles of varying sizes. Higher is better.

The cheapest filter is rated MERV 4 or less and can cost equally footling equally a couple of dollars. A filter rated MERV ane tin capture some pollen, grit mites, and clothing/carpet fibers. It's better than no filter at all, but continue in mind: yous become what you pay for. A low-cease filter volition need to be replaced more often and doesn't capture particles such as mold, tobacco fume, minor dust particles, etc.

One inch filter

When you lot concur a inexpensive filter up to the low-cal, yous can even read through it. Piddling wonder that information technology'south non very constructive.

1 footstep upwards is a pleated filter, which tin be fabricated from paper or textile, and is enclosed in a cardboard frame. Pleated, one-inch filters generally take a MERV anywhere from 5 - 8. They cost $40 and upward.

Prices for filters rated for MERV ix-12 commencement in the hundreds of dollars. Besides the materials already mentioned, they are adept for catching auto emissions, dust that can damage lungs, smog, and even Legionella.

Air clean enough for hospitals comes from filters rated with a MERV 13-sixteen. The CDC recommends MERV xiii filters or better for schools, buildings, and homes. A MERV rating of 16 can capture particulates between .3 and .1 microns. For comparison, a human hair is most 100 microns thick.

The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) states: "Our electric current recommendation is to use a filter with a Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value (MERV) of 13, only a MERV xiv (or better) filter is preferred. Of course, the ultimate choice needs to accept the capabilities of the HVAC systems into consideration."

A MERV 11 is pretty standard. The MERV 11 offers a mix of expert airflow and capture charge per unit. Withal, people with allergies that have animate sensitivities might want to go to a filter with a higher MERV rating.

An additional measurement for filters is the Clean Air Commitment Charge per unit, or CADR. This rating is the number of airborne particles that tin can be removed from the menstruation of a fix volume of air per minute. The higher the number, the more effective the filter is at removing particles from the air.

The most expensive and most effective air cleaners are electric filters, which are a hybrid, using both filters and electronic plates. Technically they are called air cleaners. They can clean air with upwardly to 700 CADR.

Some filters don't need to be replaced, only they must be cleaned with a vacuum cleaner at regular intervals.

Carbon filters tin can as well be added to an HVAC arrangement to provide additional filtration from smoke, cooking odors, and pets. Nevertheless, you'll want to be careful the insert doesn't restrict too much airflow. Besides much restricted airflow can result in increased static pressure

Aprilaire Filters

Commonly when we install a furnace, heat pump, or air conditioner, nosotros replace your filter with a four-inch-thick Aprilaire media filter , which ranges from MERV 11-16. They allow for better airflow than many of the 1-inch filters, and still maintain filtration efficiency.

The other thing we like about that Aprilaire filter is it provides the lowest static pressure level on the system.

Aprilaire filters keep the air clean. Clean air keeps your entire HVAC organization clean, which includes the blower that moves the air, the estrus exchanger in the furnace, the evaporator ringlet above the furnace, too as your ductwork.

Electronic Filters and Air Purification

Electronic filters have a pre-filter, and so there are plates and wires. Information technology's a high-voltage organization that sets upward a charge, and as the dirt particles go through, the charges brand them stick to the plates. The Trane CleanEffects Air Cleaner is one example. It is specially effective at capturing allergens and other particles as small as .ane micron.

There are some washable filters; they're billed every bit electrostatic air cleaners. These washable filters are unremarkably pretty dense, and they're unremarkably pretty restrictive for airflow. You can launder them off or use an air compressor to clean them.

Common HVAC Air Filter FAQs

- My thermostat tells me I need to change my filters when they don't demand information technology. What'due south the problem?

Nigh thermostats have a filter alter reminder in them. A timer measures how long the blower runs, and then sends an warning afterwards a ready number of hours.

Role of an installer's job is to input what type of filter is used in the system. So the thermostat will calculate how many hours information technology can become earlier the filter needs to be changed.

Information technology may say you need to alter your one-inch filter in sixty days, when, in fact, you take a four-inch media filter that doesn't demand to be changed nevertheless. That setting needs to be gear up up properly at the time of installation. If this result sounds familiar, you will most likely need a service tech to come out and modify that setting.

- Why Don't All HVAC Units Use Four-Inch Filters If They're More Effective?

Why don't all units use four-inch filters? That media filter chiffonier and the filter accept a cost. The cabinet that houses it may not be built for a iv-inch filter, and that filter costs more than the one-inch filter.

The other reason not to would be is there'southward no room for it. You lot need an additional 5 ½, 6 inches to slide in a four-inch filter. If the furnace is against a wall or in the closet, you lot're probably stuck with the one-inch variety.

What's Adjacent

HVAC technicians would exist more happy to do the muddied work, to replace a grungy filter with a like or more than expensive ane. They tin can also wax rhapsodic well-nigh the higher-cease filters, including the very pricy HEPA varieties and air purification systems.

In the cease, it's up to yous. I promise that this article answered a question or two that was on your mind about filters.

What'south nigh important is that filters are as essential to your HVAC every bit your furnace, heat pump, or air conditioner, but they are much easier to take care of. Filters are relatively cheap, peculiarly compared to the cost of repair to your HVAC.

If you'd similar to learn more than about filters and indoor air quality visit our website'south filter page. In that location y'all can check out additional resources on filters and other HVAC topics. Y'all tin can also lodge filters directly and have them delivered right to your front end door.

Check beneath to see if y'all're in our service area. If you're in Columbus, Ohio, or the surrounding areas, we'd love to have a Burn down & Water ice sales professional walk y'all through any and all HVAC options to help you cull the best equipment for your needs.

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