Regular maintenance on your heating and air conditioning system should be done like clockwork.

Be sure to change your filters once a month. A clean filter allows your unit to run more efficiently and causes less wear and tear on your equipment.

Dirty Hands or Dirty Lungs?

Changing your furnace filters is a dusty, dirty job. The best thing about doing it is that it only takes a minute or two. This is definitely one time that it pays to get your hands dirty!

First, keeping clean filters in your furnace pays off in fuel savings. Dirty filters make the heat exchanger in your furnace dirty, too. When this happens, the exchanger doesn't send as much heat as it should into your house, and you end up burning more fuel than necessary.

Furnace filters are cheap. Fuel isn't!

Second, furnace filters trap gunk that would otherwise find its way into your home, your clothes, your hair—and your lungs.

Woven fiberglass filters aren't exactly high-tech, but they can trap about 5% of dust, bacteria and plant spores you'd otherwise be breathing. A pleated 1" filter can remove 20-40% while box filters and electronic filters remove up to 99%.

A furnace filter traps these airborne nasties and holds them until you come along and throw them (and the filter) away. If you don't, your filter becomes bacteria central—a staging ground for all kinds of unpleasant life forms (and former life forms).

Our advice: don't let your filters get old and dirty. Do the simplest of furnace maintenance jobs often.

Get your hands dirty and save your furnace and your lungs!