There are few things more boring, or easily forgotten, than performing routine home maintenance tasks. Mowing the grass, resealing grout, replacing caulk around the windows. Yawn, right? Well, as tedious as those tasks seem, they are very important to the way your home physically operates. A properly maintained home helps keep your energy costs down, which in turn (if we are being totally honest) means you have more money left over for decorating. Woot!
I am notorious for conveniently forgetting routine tasks, like changing smoke detector batteries before they start beeping at me or the HVAC filters before they are disgustingly dirty. I’m pretty good at remembering things that happen once a month, like giving my dogs heir heart worm preventative on the first of every month. But if something is supposed to be done once every few months? My brain refuses to participate. I mean, y’all saw my dirty HVAC filters a few months ago. They were gross! Thank goodness I usually use the Filtrete Allergen Defense MPR 1000 filters that help to reduce airborne allergens in my home and clean indoor air by capturing dust, pollen and lint from passing through the system. That at least makes me feel a little bit better when I forget about them.
Since I’m trying to do my best to turn over a new leaf and save us a little money by properly maintaining an efficient heating and cooling system, I have come up with a system to help myself remember to perform certain tasks. One of my friends (shout out to Sara!) just told me it cost her $7,000 to replace an old HVAC system – you could buy a lot of paint with that money, y’all! Replacing her system wasn’t dirty filter related, but there’s no reason why I should send mine to an early grave by ignoring it.
Just in case you are in the same boat as I am, I put together a list of a few ideas I had for setting up a system for these types of reminders:
Set an Alarm
I tend to rely on my iPhone for just about everything. I need it to make calls, send emails, search the Internet, do some pinning and tell me if its going to rain. Now, I think it needs to remind me to change my HVAC filters, too.
There are a few ways you can set such an alarm on your phone. With either an iPhone or an Android, you can download a free app called Any.Do (I LOVE this app, y’all). You can schedule a task, like Replace HVAC Filters, every three months (the recommended time between changing filters) and set an alarm to go off. When the date and time you selected arrives, a chime and a notification will pop up on your phone.
Any.Do even has a web app now which makes it even easier to schedule tasks. I use it for reminders for all sorts of things.
Jot it Down
As much as I love my Any.Do app, I’m a paper calendar type of girl. I know, I know. Make fun of me all you want, but writing appointments down on a paper calendar is pretty much the only way that I’m going to make it there at the right time. I’ve tried – and failed – several times to convert myself to a digital calendar on my phone/computer. Each time, it ended badly. I know that I can quickly go though my year and write down “Replace HVAC filters” on a date every three months. Easy peasy!
Write a Date on the Filter
If you are more a fly by the seat of your pants type of person, you can actually take a marker and write the date you need to change the filter onto the cardboard surround of the filter. You will be able to see the date through the vent slats.
This method works best for those of you who don’t like to play a game of Chicken. My husband and I play Soap Chicken in that he/she who decides that the sliver of bar soap in the shower is no longer big enough to use and replaces it is the loser. I’m pretty sure Tom and I would play HVAC Filter Chicken, too.
For what it’s worth, I always tend to be the Soap Chicken loser, so I think that says better things about me than it does abut him.
Create a Home Maintenance Task Document
When we first moved into our home, we did create a home maintenance task document on our computer that we printed out and hung on the side of the fridge. It told us how often we needed to fertilize the yard, run a sanitize cycle on our washer and change our HVAC filters. It worked great for a while, but then we ended up going blind to it. But, if you are really good at noticing the stuff on your fridge, this might work for you.
This cute printable home maintenance schedule is a free printable that came from Organizing Home Life. You just fill in your dates with a pen or pencil.
Sign Up for Filter Change Reminders
Lastly, you can sign up to receive an email reminder when it’s time to change your HVAC filter. Filtrete makes this really easy! If you go to their website and scroll down a little way, you will see the place where you can submit your information to have a reminder sent. I’m a fan of email reminders, so I think that’s a great free service.
Hopefully, that list contained an item that will help you remember to change the HVAC filters in your home. Changing your filters on a regular basis will help show your home’s major system some love. And if you want to save your wallet some love, you can use the available Filtrete rebates the next time you need to purchase new filters. That’s a win-win, my friends.
This post has been sponsored by Filtrete as a part of the Filtrete Blogger Ambassador program. I was compensated for this post. All opinions expressed and products recommended are my own.
It isn’t attractive but I have little post-its on my calendar. Yes, I use the calendar on my phone for little reminders, (like what time was that hair appointment?) but I HAVE to have the paper calendar too. Besides, the kids see it and they are learning about organization and home maintenance from it, I HOPE!!! So there is a post-it that says FILTER in all caps and below it in smaller writing is the date the filter was changed; say 05/21/14. When hubs changed the filter in May I wrote down the date and moved that post-it to August. Now, if for some reason he doesn’t change the filter in August, I move the post-it to Sept and we can still see how we are on scheduling. When all the post-it is filled with dates (I can get a couple years on one post-it) I just put the post-it in the HVAC file. There is also a post-it for warranty expiration dates. Example, the new garbage disposal warranty doesn’t expire until something like June 2019. So, yes, there is a post-it that will live in Dec of every calendar until 2019. When I write up all the birthdays on my 2019 calendar the garbage disposal will get its own post-it for June. Multiple items are on each post-it and I can write really small, so it isn’t as big a mess as it sounds!!! If something happens to pretty much anything in the house I just flip to Dec and check out the expiration date of the warranty. Car battery? Covered! (pro-rated, but every little bit helps!) New kitchen mixer? Covered!
Here’s another tip about warranties. Let’s say the new leaf blower warranty is about to expire. So we take it in to Sears (or wherever) and get it serviced the month before the warranty expires. Most services, be it on your car or appliances, are covered for another six months. The little bit of effort sort of extends the warranty a little longer and has saved us lots of money over the years, because isn’t that when most things break/die? Just months after the original warranty expires??
This was a great article. My family has been in the HVAC industry for years and I still forget to change filters when they need them. I never even thought of giving myself a reminder. I will definitely be applying some of this not only for filters but other things I need to keep track of as well. Thanks!
Found my way to this article and I am going to share it with our HVAC customers. This is just one of those things people tend to forget about. We always tell our customers to change their filters at least 2xs a year when the time changes. Once when you spring forward and once when you fall back.
If you can remember that, at least you will have changed the filters a couple times during the year! Hey I also liked the filtrete reminder, that is an excellent resource. Thanks!
Dirty filters kill your AC’s efficiency, so install a new one every month during the cooling season for central and window units (or clean them if you’ve got the washable type). Look for the filter’s minimum efficiency reporting value, or MERV, which ranges from 1 to 12 for home AC units; the higher the number, the better filtration it provides (and the more energy needed to pull air through it, so balance air-quality concerns with energy costs).
I always jot it down in my personal diary or set the alarm on my phone. Replacing the filters are pivotal for maintaining the efficiency and air quality. Thank you for these tips, I will try the home maintenance task document from next time.