Hi there. My name is Nils with LRN2DIY. And in this video,
I'll be showing you how to swap out your HVAC furnace,
air filter quickly and easily. Now,
the first thing we need to do is to make sure to turn off our unit and most
modern units have a switch like this.
And all you have to do is flip that off and you're good to go.
You want to make sure to do that before you change out the filter,
so you don't get any loose debris or anything from the filter,
shaking out and going into the system. Now,
if you don't have a switch like this,
you can also use your thermostat and set it to off mode or automatic.
And then if that fails, for any reason,
you can also just flip the circuit breaker on your unit.
Now with the HVAC system turned off,
we're now ready to locate the filter itself. If you know right where that is,
then you're in good shape.
If you're not sure it's pretty much always going to be in between this big
return plenum here and your blower or your main unit here.
And in some rare cases that might actually be behind one of the air returns in
your home. Like you see in this picture here,
in some cases you actually unlatch the return and the filter is right there
behind it. Once we've determined the location of our filter, next,
we need to figure out which way to put it in. Now, if we pull this guy out, now,
this is one of these really cheap ones.
And we'll talk about which one to choose in just a moment.
But in here we have this little airflow arrow here and we need
to really make sure that you get this in the right direction.
Now the right direction is pretty much always just pointing towards the furnace
itself, the blower so that your air is coming in this way,
it's coming through the filter and then going into the furnace here.
And so that's what you need to make sure the arrow is pointing toward.
And another way you can see on the actual filter itself is they'll all have some
sort of netting like this on the backside.
This should also be facing your furnace like so,
and that's to help prevent it from being sucked in or collapsing in case this
gets really full of debris and basically just clogged.
Now a really quick tip on this to save yourself from having to even think about
this in the future,
you can take a Sharpie and just on your air return your platinum here,
you can just put an arrow indicating that the airflow,
the arrow needs to go that direction.
And you can just line up your filters with that from then on. Now,
as far as choosing which filter to use, there are a lot of factors involved,
but most technicians will recommend that you choose something that's on the
middle to low end. Basically, you've got these different ratings. There's,
what's called a MERV rating and an FPR rating.
You don't need to get too far into the details with this,
but basically the higher, the number on this,
whether it's the MERV or the FPR rating, the more it will filter out,
but on the downside of that, the less air flow it's going to allow through.
And so if you do something like these green ones that I've got in mine at the
moment, this is one of the lowest rated ones.
It's also one of the least expensive ones and needs to be replaced pretty
regularly. The nice thing is it lets the most air through.
So as long as you're replacing it quite often, in my case,
every three to four weeks, then it's going to do a good job. Now,
if you've got someone in your home, who's sensitive to allergies or allergens,
pollens,
a pet dander or different things like it might help to get something that's a
little on the higher end here. And another tip for that is buy these in bulk.
Don't go buy one at a time.
I'll put some links in the description below where you can go purchase these
from Amazon and you can get four of them or eight of them or 10 of them at a
time. And it saves you a lot of money and a lot of time doing it that way.
Now on the topic of how often to replace these,
you'll notice most of them say that these provide up to 90 day airflow
performance.
And the key phrase in there is "up to" a lot of these are actually meant to be
replaced sooner than that.
And really you just want to check on them from time to time and you'll kind of
get into a rhythm of seeing how often you should be replacing those in your
house. It depends on things like pets that you have,
how often this thing is running, whether it's air conditioning or heating,
as well as the surrounding environment.
Like if there's new construction or different things like that. Now,
a couple of tips on that,
these less expensive ones that are more on the rating of let's say four,
like this, they won't typically last 90 days.
A lot of them are really just meant,
especially these ones that are just the fiberglass they're really meant for 30
days or up to 30 days of use.
So get in the habit of changing them on the first of the month.
And in some cases you might need to do it even more than that. Now,
if you find yourself in a situation where in the winter,
your house just won't heat up enough,
it feels like there's just not enough hot air to keep up or in the summer.
It won't cool down enough.
Oftentimes that's because there's just not enough air flow coming through these
filters. So in those cases,
it's sometimes helpful to use one of these less expensive fiberglass filters,
which lets a lot of the air flow through and that will help provide enough air
for your unit to do its job properly.
And you might want to go back to whatever kind of mid grade one that you were
using prior after that.
But it will help you get through those tough situations when it's just really
hot out or really cold out.
It's imperative that you have the right size for your filter,
because if it's too small, then it will let air go around it,
which is unfiltered, which can let debris into your system.
Once you've determined that size,
it might be helpful to just write that on the plenum.
That way when you go to shop for more,
you can just check without having to pull the filter out.
Now that we know our airflow direction and everything else that we need,
we'll take out the old,
the one here and then I'm going to open up one of these FPR sevens.
We'll put this in. Okay, there's our airflow there...
and one thing that I also like to do is just to write the date that you replaced
this. It just makes it a little bit easier.
So if you're unsure how long it's been now,
this last piece is totally optional,
but I didn't know this was a thing until just recently.
You can actually buy whole home air fresheners that go onto your filter
itself. And they're pretty simple. Basically.
You've got a little adhesive air freshener here and it sticks on one side.
You can hook it on just to make sure it stays on well and then just kind of
press that guy on here and then slide it in.
And then we are all complete again. Totally optional.
But I thought let's just try it out. Might be kind of nice.
So once that's in there,
our last step is just to make sure the power is turned back on.
I'll flip that back on and then we're good to go.
I like to leave my filters right here next to the furnace,
just so I always know where they are and that's all there is to it.
So if you have any questions or anything,
please leave those in the comments below and thanks for watching.