Tips to Remember to Change Your Air Filter

With as much as we use our air conditioners in the Coastal Bend area, the air filters in these systems fill up fast with a variety of air contaminants. Changing the filter on schedule keeps your home’s air cleaner and helps your A/C run more efficiently.

Know Your Schedule

To remember when you need to change your air filter, you need a clear schedule. This schedule depends on the type of filter you use, how much you run your air conditioner, and your indoor air quality.

On the packaging of most filters, you’ll find a recommended change schedule based on these factors. In general, 1-inch fiberglass air filters should be changed monthly during the cooling season. A higher-efficiency pleated air filter, which has more surface area to trap debris, lasts between three to six months, but you should still inspect it monthly.

Make Remembering Easy

When you put in a new air filter, write the date onto the filter itself. This makes it easy to see how long the filter’s been in there the next time you check on it.

Beyond this, there are a few handy ways to make sure the next filter change doesn’t slip your mind.

Upgrade your thermostat – If you already have a programmable thermostat, the device probably has a “change filter” light that will come on as needed. If you don’t have one of these thermostats, now’s a good time to upgrade.

Put it on the calendar – A simple way to remember to change your filter is to calculate when the next change should be, then mark that on your wall calendar, enter it into your online or phone calendar or set a reminder on your phone.

Pair it with another task – Connect your monthly filter check with another task that you’re unlikely to forget, such as paying your electricity or gas bill.

Use home maintenance forms – Create monthly forms that list the home maintenance tasks you need to do for each month of the year and add filter changes to those lists.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in Corpus Christi, Texas about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Guide or call us at 361-678-2495.

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