We here at Remember the Filter are not jaded cynics. The ruthless Capitalist response to the question “Should you change your air filter more often in summer?” would be “Yes, absolutely, buy more product.” But there’s more at play here than money changing hands. We’re interested in having more informed, knowledgeable HVAC consumers in the marketplace. To answer the question, even as you switch from heating to air conditioning, you should change your filter as regularly as you would if you were running the furnace. In some situations, you may need a more robust schedule. Let’s take a closer look.
How’s the Humidity?
Unless you live in an arid region of the United States, you’re likely to experience much higher humidity in spring and summer than in fall and winter. This takes its toll on your filter by introducing more moisture into the system, which reduces the filter’s efficacy. Also, consider what that moisture so often carries: pollutants such as mold and pollen. They wreak havoc on hypersensitive immune systems. If you’re in an area where mold and pollen levels run high and pose a problem to people in the household, you may need to change filters closer to every 30 days than every 90 days.
We Don’t Scream for Iced ACs
As air filters pick up such particles, they gradually come to block airflow through the system. When this occurs, the air conditioner works harder—too hard, as a matter of fact. In summer, this can mean making some ice that’s anything but refreshing. As a result of the system misreading itself, the AC unit ices over, which has the dual consequences of failing to cool the home while also wasting valuable electricity. By keeping the filters clean all summer long, along with keeping the AC unit’s coils clean of dirt and plant matter, you can avoid wasting resources and performing tedious repairs on the air conditioner.
Longer Air Cycles
If there’s one big reason why you should change your air filter more often in summer, it’s the longer cycles that an air conditioner runs versus those of your furnace. While a furnace operates intermittently, heating the home to the desired temperature in a hurry and then taking time off, an air conditioner runs longer in order to cool the home down and lower humidity. Longer operation time means more air circulating through the system, and more air passing through the filter means it’ll capture its fill of airborne particles sooner.
The Right Filter for Summer
While some filters may need to be replaced as soon as every 30 days each summer, Remember the Filter offers models that may keep you from making so many replacements. Pleated air filters offer expanded surface space, which extends the filter’s lifespans up to 90 days, even with summer’s heavy workload. After all, we don’t merely want to sell you more filters—we want you to have better ones.
