Ever since the 1970’s, indoor air quality has been a major topic of debate and discussion amongst the scientific community. The problem of outdoor pollution and its negative effects on your health has been discussed at length – in no small part because it’s causes and effects are glaringly obvious. The issue of indoor air pollution however has only recently come to the forefront in discussions amongst health officials and as they’ve discovered it is just as an insidious a problem, if not more so, than the pollution outside your door.
Indoor air pollutants can come from a variety of different sources but they almost always fall into two categories of sources: either from the materials that make up the building or as a result of activities carried out within it. One of the most common causes of indoor air pollution happens when a home’s occupants neglect their furnace filter and allow it to get dirty and clogged.
The purpose of your furnace filter is to catch dust, pet dander, mold and other impurities as the air comes through the ventilation. When your filter gets dirty and clogged, it stops doing its job. This results in pollutants being forced into the air that you breath in your home. Tiny particles like mold and other allergens are especially dangerous as they can lodge themselves deep within the tissue of the lungs, causing significant respiratory distress.
Not only can letting your air filters get clogged up affect the health of you and your family, but it can also cause damage to your furnace and other HVAC components. When your filter becomes clogged, the equipment has to work that much harder in order to force air through it. The hot air that builds up in the heat exchanger due to the blockage is unable to be removed. This will cause your heating system to shut down or, even worse, start a fire.
Keeping up with regularly scheduled filter changes is easy to do and can save your family’s health, your HVAC equipment’s life and also the cost of you energy bills. You don’t even need to leave your home, you can go online to a site like AirFilterBuy and have a new furnace filter delivered right to your door. You could even leave yourself a reminder to order one a week before its scheduled replacement time and have it arrive in time to be replaced.
Furnaces keep us warm in the winter and cool in the summer. They keep our water pipes from freezing. Dirty filters can cause your furnace to overheat and catch on fire, and can cause serious damage to your health and the health of your family when things like dust, mold and bacteria are not filtered out. A clean, effectively working furnace also lowers your energy cost. Changing the furnace filter is the cheapest and easiest thing you can do to maintain your furnace. Don’t be one of those homeowners who find out the hard way that their filter needed to be replaced. Check your filter’s recommended life as specified by the manufacturer and and replace it when needed.