Change your AC filter
The cheapest maintenance in your entire house, and most people skip it. Here's how to find the filter, read the size and put the new one in the right way.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time
- 10 minutes
- Cost
- $10 to $25
- 01
Find it.
Usually a big vent in a hallway ceiling or wall, or a slot at the indoor unit itself.
- 02
Read the old one.
The size is printed on the cardboard edge. Take a photo of it. You will forget.
- 03
Note the arrow.
The arrow points toward the unit, in the direction the air is traveling. Backwards is worse than dirty.
- 04
Slide the new one in.
Close it up. Write the date on the edge of the filter with a marker.
- 05
Set a reminder.
Every 90 days. Every 30 if you have dogs, or if it's July in Texas.
If the filter is soaked, or there's ice on the lines outside, that isn't a filter problem. Shut the system off and call an HVAC tech before you burn up a compressor.
Buy four filters at a time and stack them right next to the vent. The reason people don't change filters is not laziness, it's that the filter isn't there.