What Problems Occur If You Don’t Change Your Heating and AC Filter? | Fort Worth, TX
When it comes to your heating and AC unit, you probably know that the unit has a filter to help prevent dust from getting into it and causing problems. But if you’re moving into a home for the first time, you might not know just how important it is to regularly change your filter. Depending on the kind of home you have in Fort Worth, TX, you’ll need to change the filter to your HVAC unit somewhere between every three months and every year in order to keep it operating the way that it should.
However, not everyone follows the basic guidelines of home maintenance, and if you’re not paying close attention to your HVAC — which can definitely happen on cooler days in the winter and spring in Texas — you might not always stay on track of when you need to replace your filter. Unfortunately, failing to replace the filter in your heating and AC unit isn’t a task that you can get away with not doing. If you don’t replace the filter at the right time, there are several issues that can occur — such as these common problems!
Increased Power Bills
If you’re like most residents of Fort Worth, TX, you probably think that your power bill is already too high as it is. But if you fail to switch out your heating and AC unit’s air filter, you can look forward to seeing your monthly bill getting much higher.
That’s because the dust that your filter keeps out of the system can cause parts of your HVAC to either stop working entirely or become much less efficient. When the fan motors and valves become clogged with dust, your heating and AC unit has to work much harder to get your home’s temperature to the level that you would prefer. Unfortunately, the harder your unit works, the more power it uses, and the more power it uses…you see where this is going.
Conservatively, simply changing your filter as needed will save you around 15 percent on your monthly power bills. If you’ve done the math, that means that if your bill is $150 a month, you’ll end up saving $22.50 just by changing the filter of your heating and AC unit when it’s necessary. Considering that you can get a filter that’s designed to last for six months to a year for around $40, your new filter will pay for itself in about two months!
Breathing Problems
Did you know that most people spend about 85 percent of their day indoors? Unless you have a job that specifically pulls you outside, such as a construction job, you’re probably included in that group. Did you know that you also lose hundreds of thousands of skin flakes every day, just from your body growing new cells and replacing the ones you’ve lost? All of those lost flakes turn into dust, and during the course of the day, that dust gets blown around your home and ends up finding its way toward the filter of your heating and AC unit.
What does that mean for your health? Simple: it means that the air you’re going to be breathing in your Fort Worth, TX home won’t be anywhere near as clean as you need it to be. Over time, you might develop breathing problems or illnesses from the dust getting trapped in your filter and getting sent back into the rest of the home.
If you have pets, you should know that they can be especially vulnerable to these kinds of issues, especially if they’re entirely indoor creatures. If you’ve got a cat or dog, you need to be changing the filter of your heating and AC unit every three months. That’s for two reasons: their fur causes your filter to get dirty much faster, and they can quickly develop diseases if they’re exposed to dirty air for too long. Take care of your furry friends — and yourself — by making sure to change the filter!
Mold Contamination
Moisture is one of the worst things to have in your Fort Worth, TX home when dust is involved. Now think of the moisture that comes from your heating and AC unit and imagine the dust that’s getting circulated through the unit when it gets past the filter, and you can see just how big of a problem mold can be for your unit.
During an average day, the air in your home is going to circulate through your unit around five to seven times, giving dust and other contaminants plenty of time to encounter your filter. If the filter is overwhelmed by dirt and allows them to pass through, the addition of moisture in the air is a perfect recipe for mold to grow. If that happens, not only will you need to worry about repairs for your heating and AC unit, but you’ll have to call in a restoration team to take care of the mold and clear it out — an expense that most people don’t have the budget for.
Premature Replacement
On average, your HVAC unit in your Fort Worth, TX home can be expected to last you between 15 and 20 years before it needs to be replaced. However, that timetable is only with proper care and maintenance, along with normal usage.
If you let the filter sit too long when it needs to be changed, you’re going to take years off of the parts of your HVAC, making it wear out much faster and leading to a costly replacement long before you would have needed it.
In both the long and short run, changing the filter of your unit is a small expense that can pay big dividends. Not only will you quickly see savings over what you might have otherwise paid, but you’ll also find yourself breathing better, avoiding health problems and saving money by not having to replace your heating and AC unit at your home in Fort Worth, TX. It’s a simple task that anyone can do, and the rewards are very much worth it! Contact the experts at One Hour Air Conditioning and Heating today!