I was going to include a picture of a Dirty HVAC Filter on this post... but they are just too nasty!

One of the most common points of your home hvac system you have access to, is often the most neglected, your HVAC Filter. When you hear people say you have to replace it often and wonder why, this post will help explain it in straight terms.

Visit the HVAC Media Filter Aisle in our store

To best understand the importance of replacing your home hvac filter, lets look at a similar situation on our cars. As you drive down the road, the radiator in the front of your car allows air to pass through, thus cooling the refrigerant (antifreeze) that passes through your engine. Imagine if someone sprayed mud all over the front of your car and the radiator became completely plugged... no air would pass through, the coolant would not dissipate the heat from your engine, and eventually... your car would just overheat and leave you on the side of the road.

in your home HVAC System, there is actually a very similar process! Inside your system is what we call and evaporator coil - it works very similar to the radiator in the front of your car, except you cannot see it! When your outside condensing unit pumps ice cold refrigerant into the evaporator coil, air from your blower passes over it and blows that cold air into your home. The coil relies on being clean to work efficiently and when dust or dirt build up on it, the flow of air is reduced and it eventually freezes up into a block of ice!

Really, you don't even need dust on the coil to cause a freeze up situation. If your HVAC Media Filters are dirty, they will reduce the amount of air that your blower can use flow across the coil. Try this... take a deep breath and fill your lungs with air. Felt good no? Well, now cover your mouth with your hand and try to do the same thing! Your lungs will starve for air since you plugged the opening that feeds them. Same thing... Dirty HVAC Filters block the airflow into your system, which leads to the unit starving for air, and eventually freezing or complete failure!

Changing your hvac air filters is the easiest thing you can do to make sure your system runs at its highest efficiency. Some brands, such as Honeywell, make filters that are supposed to last longer periods of time due to being thicker... dont fall into the trap!! Even if you buy high efficiency air filters, you MUST remove and clean them every 30 days. Failure to do this will leave you sweating in the middle of the summer!

Visit the HVAC Media Filter Aisle in our store

In a future post, I will talk about the differences in HVAC Media Filters...

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Filed under: HVAC Blog

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