Have You Checked Your HVAC Air Filter yet This Heating Season?

We’re about three months into heating season 2019-2020 – which means your HVAC system has already logged a lot of hours keeping your family safe and warm in your Sullivan county home.

The question is, have you checked your HVAC air filter lately?

Most of us don’t do this simple HVAC maintenance task nearly often enough: although many factors influence the frequency with which you should change your furnace filter – how air tight your building is, whether or not you smoke or have fur-bearing pets, and what type of material your air filter is made from, to name a few – a good rule of thumb is that your air filter should be checked once a month and changed every one to three months.

You may wonder if changing an air filter that often is overkill – after all, your furnace will run just fine with the older filter in place, won’t it? Well, not really: When you run your propane– or heating oil-fired furnace with a filter clogged by dust, fur, and other particles, you can expect to experience:

• Lower indoor air quality – Leaving a dirty filter in place could allow unfiltered air to bypass the filter, introducing pollutants into the ductwork and, eventually, into your home.
• Higher bills – When you don’t replace your HVAC system’s filters, you could find yourself paying more for less comfort. That’s because forcing air through a dirty filter requires more energy than pushing it through a clean filter – energy that you pay for with higher bills and diminished airflow.
• More heating repairs – A dirty filter causes your heating system to overwork, which could lead to big problems down the road: simply put, the more strain you put on your heater, the more likely it is to break down or even fail completely in the future.

The good news is that furnace air filters are relatively inexpensive to replace – something that can be done in just minutes without much technical skill or background in HVAC repairs.

Replacing your air filter is just one of the tasks our expert heating technicians will tackle when they perform annual preventative maintenance on your heating equipment. If you haven’t had your heating system serviced this year, it’s not too late – contact us today to sign up for a Black Bear Little Paw or Big Paw Service Agreement, which includes an annual tune-up, priority service, and more!