Home Improvement Tip | Clean Your Air Filters Or Else!

Home Improvement Tip 

Clean Your Air Filters Or Else!

When I got home the other day from a long day at work it was 82 degrees inside my home and 95 degrees  outside with the dew point in the 70's. It was uncomfortable to say the least.

My air conditioner isn't putting any cold air into my  home. Its after 5:00pm so I don't call anyone because I'm hot and bothered and I don't want to pay time and a half for after hours work.

I have ceiling fans in many of the rooms in my home so I thought I'd be OK until morning. That wasn't the case at all. It was the worse night sleep I've had in years. I had my ceiling fan running on high but the inside temperature kept rising.

I called Vogt Heating and Air Conditioning first thing the next morning to schedule a appointment to fix my air conditioner that day no matter the cost. I wasn't going to go through another night like that.

What Does Oh Oh Mean?

The tech came out promptly around 11:00am to investigate the situation. He checked the freon and it was down a little bit but that wasn't the problem. He took a look a the evaporators inside the unit and noticed they were covered with over a inch of ice.

When the tech saw all the ice I heard him say Oh Oh! Just like at a doctor's office you don't want to hear anyone say Oh Oh. I asked the tech what does oh oh mean.

When was the last time you changed your air filters? he asked. I had no idea and that turned out to be the problem.

He went on to explain that if your air filters are dirty then the evaporators will get covered with dust so the cooling process cant take place and the air conditioner will just freeze up and stop cooling. The cost to clean the evaporator coils is over $1,000 so we both hoped they weren't dirty.

He turned the heat on to melt the ice so we could get at the heart of the problem.

It was my lucky day. They weren't too bad so after the ice was melted we turned the Air Conditioner back on and the cool air started to flow.

The tech didn't have the right size air filters for my furnace so he recommended I go to Menard's or to my local Ace Hardware store to purchase several air filters and get one installed immediately.

You don't have to tell me twice so I immediately purchased a box of air filters to have on hand. I will replace them monthly.

I always thought the purpose a air filter was to clean the air we breath. The reality is, air filters are for proper performance of the HVAC unit itself.