This weekend’s weather in Cleveland was sweltering… fortunately we didn’t reach the magnitude of the forecast a few months ago but 89 degrees and tropical levels of humidity do not make for a comfortable home.
It became obvious that it was going to be a central air conditioning day (we were having family over and it wasn’t feeling very pleasant). Well, as the story often goes… were we getting cold air? Oh, of course we weren’t.
We suffered through for a bit, and my husband even installed a new thermostat, but it was the wisdom of my father-in-law that taught us quite a lesson, and the answer came from this one simple question:
“Have you changed your filter lately?”
I’m embarrassed to say that we hadn’t… since “I don’t know when!”… so when we took a look, it was like something out of a horror film. I can’t even imagine that air could have filtered through that thing, so it’s no wonder our house never cooled down… until we replaced it, and then we were cool and comfortable.
The reason for the story? Because one seemingly small oversight has caused us to be horribly energy INefficient. That dirty filter slowed the flow of air and made the system work incredibly hard and, in turn, wasted energy. I’m sure it was doing the same thing to our furnace just a few months ago too.
The rule of thumb: replace it at least every three months, or more frequently in heavy usage months.
So there’s my confession, but the calendar is marked and I can now guarantee that Mom Goes Green will NOT miss the next replacement.
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Hi! We loved your post over at KiwiLog and decided to feature it as part of our weekly Mom Blog Roundup. Thanks!
Our local plumbing and heating guys talked us into using accordian style replacements. Seems more surface area means less often to replace them. They also explained that the thin ones let quite a bit go by into the system and the house.