Furnace Filter Chicago

Has anyone wondered what the true importance of a furnace filter is?

The true purpose of a furnace filter is to protect the furnace, the blower motor squirrel cage, as well as keeping the dirt and dust that accumulates around your home out of the evaporator coil. Dirt created by natural living in your home gets sucked into your furnace through the return system and needs to be trapped by the furnace filter.

Many high cost furnace repairs are due to dirty and clogged furnace filters.

It is recommended by furnace manufactures to check, inspect, and/or change your furnace filter monthly. Certain conditions may require a more frequent filter change, i.e. dusty basements, home renovations, such as hard wood floor refinishing, any drywall repair, and any other activity that will kick up dust and dirt around your home or business.

Many issues have arisen from the many type of filters on the market today. Around The Town Heating And Cooling suggests the cheaper blue filters with the gold screening on them. Why do we suggest that? They are cheaper and buying twelve filters for the price of some of those 3 month filters makes throwing them in the garbage much easier to swallow. Time and time again, we go on service calls where the home owner purchased a three month filter and guess what? They didn’t change the filter for 6 months (ouch). These calls are usually costly, i.e. a new furnace. Why? Overheated heat exchangers do crack. New blower motors overheat due to static pressure or restriction caused by the dirty filter.

There are other factors to bear in mind when it comes to furnace filters. Some duct work in homes are at their minimum requirements and any restriction what’s so ever can cause undue stress to the furnace (like a dirty filter, a dirty blower motor, or even worse, a clogged evaporator coil). Please keep that in mind and ask our technicians the next time you have us out to check the duct sizing.