When and how to change your HVAC air filter

we know they're dirty from looking up through the grills that's no good listen to that struggling for air flow with a filter looking like this you are going to experience air flow issues is going to be something you're going to notice um over time ultimately and keep yourself from having heat biggest thing that you're going to notice with this obviously with h without taking care of your filter you're going to end up with dirty evaporator coils dirty blowers um a dust of your home definitely something you need to keep on a routine schedule this is the second filter on the same system both 14 by 24 filters both very very dirty so we need to definitely get that address while we're here [Music]

Dirty filter. Okay, this runs from $0 to 20 bucks. The most common reason your AC is running but not cooling is a filter that's been there too long. A clogged filter restricts airflow to the point where the system can't move enough cold air into your house. The evaporator coil, which is the cold coil inside your air handler, can't pick up enough heat from the air. So, it starts getting colder and colder and colder until it freezes solid. At that point, you've got a block of ice on your indoor unit, zero airflow, and a house that won't cool. So, here's the fix. Turn the system to fan only. Let it thaw for 2 to 4 hours, replace the filter, and then restart. So, the cost is the price of the filter, which is about 5 to 20 bucks. And guys, the repair is free. Guys, we run hundreds of calls where the repair is simply and literally this.

Your filter's probably dirty. Change your filter, you filthy animal. Don't let your filter be caked up in dust. If you can't see through your filter, it is time to change it. If it's nasty and gray, you're breathing that. Congratulations, you nasty. Change the filter. Should be changed about once a month during the summertime because of how much increased run time we have. In the fall, in the winter, in the spring, if you're like, "Hey, I want to change it once every 3 months." That's between you and God. But, during summertime, it's between me, your HVAC guy, and your system. Change it once a month during the summertime because that will encourage your system to last as long as possible. Can't

We're going to replace the air filter. This is probably the easiest thing for the homeowner to do, but often the most overlooked. Now, with this 1-in filter, we recommend checking or replacing them monthly. When you go to check your filter, if you can see dirt on it, go ahead and replace it. It's past time. We're going to get up in here. This filter's nice and open where we can see it. We can see it's got some dirt and dust buildup on it. We're just going to go ahead and pull it right out. While we're here, we're going to take a look at that evaporator coil in here. Make sure there's not a lot of buildup on there. There's not. If you haven't noticed, we're in a shop exterior to this home. It's got open duct work. That's why it's a little easier for us to see. But it's this all still applies to your home. The mo the more you can check, the more you can see on this one, the better off you're going to be. So, we've got the new filter in there. One thing I see a lot are these arrows on the system or on the filter. You want them to always be facing towards the system. That is the direction of air flow. It will work better if the arrows are pointed towards the system. [singing] >> [music]

Do it more often, please, for everything. Change your filters. It needs to happen more often than you want to. And that will also, you know, just caveat, it'll protect your system. It'll let things to last longer. Your your blower motor won't get nearly as dirty. Your heat exchanger won't get nearly as dirty. And I understand that's a hard bargain. That's a hard tradeoff. But if you don't want that smelly smell that smells smelly, change your filters more often, please. [singing]

feels like it's not keeping up change filters that's a that's a big one or if it starts freezing up filters are rated for three months but it depends on the individual's house you know I changed mine every two months I have a dog I just found that once every two months is when it needs to be changed sometimes it needs to be once a month if your filters are getting dirty faster then you need to be changing them more

This is a MERV 11 filter. And so, what I'm doing is I'm putting it up in the the filter grill right now. And the way you really want to be sure that the airflow arrow is pointing the direction the air is moving. So, you can see right here, if we need air to go up this way cuz it's going back to the system. And I was talking about that MERV rating, you see the zigzag pattern. And so, that increases the surface area of the filter so that it catches more pollen, pet dander, dust, all that kind of stuff. And so, um you know, the lower the MERV rating, generally the more flat you kind of see a lot of that stuff. Um but the big deal is making sure it's facing the right direction. So, we're going to fit that up in here. Okay? Sometimes people uh you might can feel just that suction back in there. You just need to make sure that it fits nice and snug. Got some of this right there. Perfect. And then you just go here. And you're clipping this back into the air filter. And you're good to go. Your home. >> [singing] [music]

Changing your filter is king with these. Not only is it going to build up on your blower wheel, which we see quite a bit, and they say a tenth of an inch of dust can can block about 20% of your air flow, which is not good. But if it gets past that blower, it could stick to this. And then what are we going to do? No air flow. We're going to go off on high limits. All those fun stuff. [music] [singing]

The most neglected component of your whole AC system is your filter. My brothers and I have been on the local news telling people how to change their filter. It's really pretty simple and it's the easiest thing someone can do to ensure that they don't have major repair bills down the line. If you've got a filter and it's just a 1-in or maybe a 3-in filter, the cadence for that kind of change that you would want to do is maybe every 30 to 60 days. So, set a reminder on your phone, but if you take your filter down and you hold it up to the light and you can't see light through it, it's overdue. Needs to be changed more often. >> Your [singing] home >> [music]

The air filter, the saving grace of your air conditioner, that helps protect one, the air conditioning system, and your air quality inside the home. Pull it out. Hold it up to a light. See if you can see through it. If that filter looks like shag carpet from the 1970s, please change it. And so, I would do anywhere from 1 month to 3 months. That's my recommendation. Your air filter, if it gets clogged, and so you can't breathe through it, just imagine if I if I take my hand over my mouth, and and I didn't breathe for a little bit, I'd fall over. Same thing happens to your system. If you don't have enough air flow across that coil, what's going to happen is is your system's going to It's going to freeze up. We don't need any glaciers inside the house. So, change that filter, please and thank you. >> Your home >> [singing] [music]

who needs shades when you've got this beauty man it's bright up here today oh that's better yeah we do see a lot of filters like that unfortunately be it residential commercial I'd say more commercial that's you know he's on a commercial Rift toop there that's something that's not uncommon to see for anybody that's not had regular maintenance done regular filter changes that's that's about as bad as a filter can get

Most every call that we get is either the AC is just not working at all or the AC is not keeping up. And something I tell a homeowner to do is one, check your filters, make sure your filters are clear. Second, go outside and make sure there's not like ice accumulated on the refrigerant lines. And if those two things, you know, if you made sure that there's no ice and that the filter's clean, then call a professional in. But start with changing the filter, start with making sure that there's no ice on those lines cuz that means we probably have an airflow restriction. And more often than not, it's your filter.

during the summertime whenever it's as hot as it is and your system's running as frequently as it is um keep in mind that your filters might also need to be changed more frequently so the time that your system is running this allows for more debris to get compost filters which causes it to struggle which causes it to run longer which causes it to catch more debris which causes your filter to get clogged more frequently so make sure those filters are changed that'll help your system run a little bit better um as it continues to stay hot in the start of july so you guys have a great day and stay cool

This is a building block of ice cream and a building block for keeping your house cool this summer is changing your filters. It's simple. Don't overdo it. Don't overthink it. Every 2 months, go change your filters. Your air conditioner, your lungs, your allergies will thank you. I promise. Then after you do that, drive on up to Edmund. Stop by Boomtown Crearyy. Get you some ice cream. Preferably either peanut butter cookie or turtly rad.

utility companies and the equipment manufacturers they always tell you to uh uh change your filters once a month but you know sometimes people do and sometimes they don't uh I always tell everybody hey good time to check your filter is when you get your electric bill so when you get your electric bill and you think oh my gosh that's high now remember your filter it may be dirty and I always tell people too that a clogged up filter is kind of like breathing with your teeth closed uh you can do it but it's kind of hard so anyway change your filter

Whenever you go to change a filter, sometimes the filter grills are up in the ceiling and other times they're down low like this. And what we want to do is go out with the old. What we want is we want to make sure that we're taking note of the size of filter. Write that down, put it in your notes app. That way when you go to the hardware store next time you can get yourself a pack of 12 of these. We want to make sure that they're kind of that full that you can't see through them. We don't want that like mesh fabric because that doesn't catch any of the dirt, debris, and pollen that we want it to. So, out with the old, in with the new. And we want to make sure that that arrow is pointing the direction that the air is going to flow. So, in towards the furnace or air handler. I slap that bad boy back in there. Snap our grill back and we're done. Your home's >> [music]

How often should you change your filters? If you have standard filters in your home like a MV 8 or MV 10, the typical ones you could buy from any of the hardware stores. We recommend replacing them about every 3 months. If you live on a gravel road where there's a ton of dust that's being thrown up in the air by vehicles driving by and you opening your door, the wind blowing that dust around, or if you have pets in your home, I recommend replace the filter about every month. Now, let's talk about how to improve your indoor air quality with upgraded filtration. Most HVAC systems require one or more [music] 1-in filters, whether it be at the unit or in the return air filter grills. [singing] [music]

that a dirty filter is the number one cause of your system not cooling. I get it, we're busy people. We're all busy. But you don't forget to do laundry. And if you do, we got different problems. Don't forget to change your filter. Your filter needs to be changed at minimum once a quarter. If you've got a bunch of pets or a bunch of little kids in and out of the house, they might need to be changed once a month if it's a 1-in filter. Now, if it's a 4-in filter media filter all that, those have their own changing cadence typically between 4 and 6 months somewhere in there. But if you have a 1-in filter as your primary source of filtration, that thing needs to be changed at minimum once a quarter and definitely, I mean, during summertime I'm changing that thing once a month because here is the reality. A cleaner filter leads to more airflow, more airflow leads to a more comfortable and happy you. So, change your filters once a month or once a quarter. Make sure that that happens.

Woo. That's no good. Check your filters. There are many times where homeowners call us out and it's a simple filter was dirty. Always kind of makes us worried as a a technician because, well, if it's just the filter is dirty, is there something else wrong? We always want to make sure we check over everything. But you could simply change your filter a lot of the times and it'd be good. Especially if you pull out that filter and it's just caked. I would definitely pull out that filter, change it out. If you don't know where your filters are, definitely look at calling us out for maintenance. Uh, whenever we do our maintenance agreements, we have 1-in filters with it. So, at that time, I would definitely bring up to the technician, hey, do you know where my filters are? That would be a great thing.

The things you can do yourself, you know, before you call a technician out, is really check that condenser coil outside. It's that metal box sitting outside your house. Make sure that's as clean as it can be. There's no debris or anything around that condenser coil to where it can breathe well. And change your filter. Dirty filters are a really big cause of of why we get called out to houses. Uh you know, someone might say, "Hey, our unit's not really working." We come inside, the filter's extremely dirty, it can't breathe, and so the unit just kind of shuts down or it stops cooling well. And so we change that filter, clean the condenser coil, and then things kind of get back up and running.

How often you should change your filter is really depending on some of the things that you're experiencing. So, if you've got pets in the house, if you're a big allergy sufferer, [music] I would honestly look at minimally changing it once a month. Normally, we tell people once a you know once every [music] other month or something like that. You can go up to once every other week if you're really just struggling. Then that [music] way your filters are getting changed out regularly. You're not just recycling old air that your filters are dirty and you're [music] introducing that to the system. So, as far as filters go, if you've got those 1-in pleated filters, >> [music] >> you got pets in the house, suffering from allergies, every month. Start with every month and if you need to go more often, go more often. Your >> [singing] >> home >> [music]

this unit's going to be 11 years old here soon getting to the point where you know they to to the homeowner's knowledge they' lived here a few years out of that 11 and they haven't had any major issues um other than being told they needed a capacitor on the outdoor unit so we'll double check that while we're here as well on that heat pump overall nothing crazy quite yet my next step I'm going to look at this evaporator coil see what kind of dirt content we have oh yeah there you can see there's a decent amount of growth on that coil as well I think this would justify a level one coil cleaning [Music]

During the fall and the winter, I always recommend if you have one-inch filters, changing those filters at least once a month because you are going to make sure that you're not breathing in burnt crusties and dusties more than you should. And also too, you're gonna make sure that your heater is capable of running all season long without having any interruptions at all. This is a preventative thing that you can do that costs you, like, 12 bucks. Just run to the local hardware store, gets you a filter, change it out