Your central air system in your house needs minimum maintenance. You need to take dirty furnace filters out and put clean ones in periodically. Generally this is every one to three months. Unfortunately, furnace filters are not one size fits all, though. Just as most houses differ in size and design, there are many different sizes of furnace filters to accommodate the size of your furnace and rooms. So, the problem to solve is twofold: 1) how to find out what size furnace filters I need and 2) where the heck do I get the ones in my size?
To summarize how to find out what size furnace filter or furnace filters you need, you would either examine the furnace filters that are already in your system, or measure for yourself. Although the former has some caveats attached, it is in general easier to deploy that method, so we will concentrate on the second method here, measuring for yourself.
First, you will want to carefully remove the grate that covers the air duct. Sometimes there will be a latch or two that open the grate and let it hang. Sometimes these latches are difficult to move, so you may want a tool handy to help pry it along, such as a screwdriver or chisel. Other grates are held into the wall or ceiling via screws, so use your flat head or Phillips head screwdriver as appropriate. It can be hard to unscrew, and even harder to rescrew the grate back in, especially in older houses, so take care and use caution. After removing the screws, place the screws in a place you’ll remember; nothing can be more irritating than finishing the job, only to spend an additional half hour looking for those darn screws!
To do the measuring, I recommend using a cloth tape measure, that is, not one of those stiff metal or plastic ones. The reason is you will be measuring under ledges, and it is difficult to get the metal tape in there without crinkling, not to mention the case that houses the tape in the other end. Measure the two sides of the rectangle, maybe giving 1/4 inch room, but make sure especially that the filter will rest easily on the ledge without being stuffed in and without being too small and falling through. Finally, just make sure that a 1″ width filter is needed. This is by far the most common, but unbelievably one of the four places in my house takes a 2″, so it’s best to be sure. Remember the old adage (paraphrasing), measure twice, buy the filter once.
By: Bobby Knight
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