When it comes to taking care of your home and yourself, the most important steps are often both the simplest and the easiest to overlook. This is never clearer than when it comes to air filters, a critical part of your HVAC system that many people just don’t think about. Changing or cleaning your filter is relatively easy, but only if you remember it on a regular basis. Knowledge is your most important ally in remembering to keep your air filter clean, so make sure to consider:
The Importance of Air Filtration
In reminding yourself to change your filter, the first step is to understand all the ways in which air filtration affects your health. A clean, regularly changed filter offers a wide range of benefits, including:
- Allergy Relief – Filters eliminate dust mites, dead skin, mold spores, pollen, pet dander, and a host of other allergens. This means that if you suffer from serious allergies, the quality of your air filter can make the difference between breathing freely and easily each day and living in poor health and discomfort. The more often you change or clean your filter, the less likely you are to suffer from allergic reactions in your own home.
- Respiratory Health – Besides eliminating allergens, air filters clean chemical fumes, auto emissions, and smoke from the air. This reduces the pressure on your respiratory system, reducing your risk of developing breathing issues down the road.
- Illness Prevention – Viruses, bacteria, and other harmful organisms are more likely to spread through your house if the air is not properly filtered. Thus, the more diligent you are about cleaning or changing your filter, the less likely you are to get sick.
- Mold and Mildew Mitigation – By allowing air to circulate freely through your house, a clean air filter prevents moisture from building up in parts of the building. This eliminates one of the most important prerequisites for mold and mildew, which would otherwise harm both your house and your health.
The better you understand the benefits of filtered air, the more likely you are to see keeping your filter clean not as some arbitrary chore, but as an investment in your health and property. You’ll thus be motivated to change or clean it on a regular basis.
Reliable Reminders for Air Filter Maintenance
Even with a clear understanding of the effects of air filtration, it can still be difficult to remember exactly when you need to change or clean your filter. To jog your memory, consider:
- Creating a Checklist– Compile all the home maintenance tasks you need to do each year onto a checklist, assigning dates for each of them. Then include changing or cleaning your filter on this list. By associating it with other important tasks, you decrease the likelihood that you’ll forget it.
- Post Reminders in Key Places– Write a list of the dates when you need to change or clean your filter, and then post that list in key places. Such sites include outside the filtration system itself and wherever you keep replacement filters or cleaning equipment. This way, you’ll remember to keep the filter clean specifically when you’re in a position to do so.
- Set Maintenance on Memorable Days– Pick memorable days of the year for changing or cleaning your filters. If you have the kind of filters that need to be changed every three months, for example, you could change them at the start of daylight saving time, on the summer solstice, and at the end of daylight saving time.
For more information on keeping your air clean and healthy, contact Snyder Heating & Air Conditioning today.
