How To Change Horizontal Furnace Filter

Exercise you know how to change your dwelling house air filter?

Changing a furnace filter is perhaps the quickest and easiest way to maximize the efficiency of your heating organization—and to assistance purify your home's air. Doing so is easier than you think.

The process should take all of five or 10 minutes. Likely the near-fourth dimension consuming part of this project will exist finding what size filter you need, and running to the store to buy a replacement.

Essentially, y'all are just swapping out the old filter with a new replacement. In one case you lot have the replacement filter, all yous need to practise is go through these 6 unproblematic steps:

Turn off your furnace
Find and locate your furnace filter
Determine the size of your filter
Remove the existing (sometime) filter
Insert the new filter
Return furnace to "on" position

1. To Change Your Domicile Air Filter, You'll Need To Turn Off Your Furnace

To prevent the HVAC unit from turning on while yous are irresolute the filter, make certain you plough the thermostat to the "off" position. This will help protect your HVAC system from loose droppings or perchance a loose filter fitting escaping into the duct.

For maximum safety, disconnect power from your furnace system while you are doing maintenance.

2. Find and Locate Your Furnace Filter

Where is my air filter located? Hither are two suggestions to answer this vexing question.

First, refer to the transmission that came with your heating and cooling system. This manual should tell you what kind and size of a filter is recommended for your heating and cooling system.

If you don't take your unit of measurement's operation transmission, most air filters are located in either the blower compartment of the furnace (remove the furnace cover, typically past lifting up), or congenital into the metal ductwork before the blower fan.

Some of these systems come with filters that can be hosed off or rinsed in the sink or bathtub. Others use fiberglass filters that tin can't be reused. These filters are hands found at hardware, home improvement and even grocery stores.

3. Determine the Size of Your Home Air Filter

Check if your furnace manual gives you lot the size of the air filter to buy.

If it doesn't, partially remove the existing filter and look for its dimensions, usually printed on the cardboard filter frame.

If you cannot locate this information, apply a measuring record or ruler to mensurate the dimensions for height, width and thickness. For example, the filter pictured to the left are 16-x-25-x-iv. In other words, sixteen inches wide; 25 inches long and 4 inches thick.

Write these dimensions down on a piece of paper to take with you when yous go to the shop to purchase the new filter. It's likewise a practiced thought to write them with a permanent marker on the actual furnace housing or ductwork to ease this process side by side time.

While the physical dimensions of the filter's width and length (due east.g., 16-ten-25) are preset according to the size of your ductwork, sometimes you tin add additional cleaning ability past purchasing additional filter depth. For instance your ductwork might permit you to purchase a 16x25x5 filter – that additional inch of filter capacity can become a long way to making the air y'all exhale cleaner.

4. Remove the Existing (quondam) Air Filter

Before you remove your existing air filter, notation the arrow on the filter frame that shows the right air flow management. You volition want to install the new filter in the same management every bit the old 1. The "air-menstruation management arrow" printed on the new filter should be pointed towards your furnace (or more specifically; arrow pointed towards your furnace fan unit).

Information technology's a good idea to draw the airflow direction arrow with a permanent mark on the bodily furnace housing or ductwork. Ideally, you'd indicate the airflow management and filter size (16x25x4 Airflow→)

Pull the sometime filter out and place it directly into a garbage bag to avoid scattering the grit effectually.

Every HVAC filter has a MERV rating, which measures how efficiently the filter captures pollutants that pass through your heating and cooling system. MERV ratings range from 1 (least efficient) to xvi (extremely efficient). Some studies testify that medium-efficiency filters — in the MERV 7 to 12 range — strike the best balance between allergen removal and filter price.

>> Be sure to bank check out How Effective are Your Domicile Air Filters? to larn more about MERV ratings.

Bones furnace home air filters are designed to trap dust, dirt, and airborne particulates before they can go into the system and potentially impairment the blower fan or the heating coil. More expensive filters perform the same role, plus they can heighten the air quality in your home by trapping bacteria, pollen, and mildew and mold spores.

>> Learn more about some of the pollutants your filter might exist capturing in this article.

v. Insert the New Air Filter

Over again, note the arrow on the former filter frame that shows the correct air flow direction. Remove the old filter and insert the new one then that the airflow management remains the same.

Home air filters are designed to filter air from one direction, then that as they load upward with clay, they will not plummet or fall apart. Information technology'south that simple.

half dozen. Return furnace to "on" position

Make certain you turn the thermostat in the "on" position in one case you have replaced the filter. With your fresh filter, yous are at present ready to use your furnace again!