If you have any type of air conditioning system or forced hot air in your Toronto home, then you have to contend with air quality issues. Even homes with radiant heating will face problems, but when it’s a forced air system, the problems can be magnified.
Any heating or cooling system in a home that is delivered through ducts (that come out of vents in the floor, ceiling, or along the walls) will run through a filter before it reaches the rooms. If that filter is clogged, full of dirt, or is missing, then the air quality in the home will decrease significantly.
Even window air conditioning units have filters, though few homeowners even bother to check, much less clean, these on a regular basis.
The importance of air quality.
What you breathe will impact your health. If you are breathing in foreign particles, you could develop allergies, respiratory infections, and other problems over time. Increased dust in the air can cause you to feel rundown and fatigued. It can cause your eyes to feel irritated and dry.
You may also notice that you or those in your family sneeze more often as a result of a clogged, missing, or otherwise ineffective air filter.
Locating and replacing the air filter in your home’s heating or cooling system is relatively simple. If you have a forced hot air heating system, the filter will be close to the air intake for the furnace. This would be where the air is drawn into the furnace chamber to be heated and then moved to the rest of the house. It will generally be located before the blower, so the blower actually sucks air in.
If you only have central air conditioning through ducts in your home, this filter will be located close to the outside air conditioning unit, but inside the house. Again, it will be at the point where air is drawn into the condenser portion of the unit before it’s cooled.
It should be checked monthly and replaced as needed, or after every heating and cooling season. If it is dirty, it should be replaced more often. If you notice that the filter is extremely dirty every month, there could be a problem with the system or air intake location. Call an HVAC specialist to come out and inspect the system.
If you still can’t locate the filter, call an HVAC specialist to come to your home and show you where it is located and how to replace it.