Keeping Your Home Comfortable — and Your Bills in Check
A few tips to keep your home comfortable and your energy costs down.
What your system does
Your HVAC system is built to heat, cool, and condition the air — adjusting temperature and humidity for comfort. It is not an air purifier. The filter is there mainly to protect the equipment from dust, not to clean the air at a microscopic level.
Change your filter
This is the single most important thing you can do. A clogged filter restricts airflow and forces the blower to work harder, so the system runs longer and wears out faster. It can freeze the coil in summer or overheat the furnace in winter — leaving you with a service call. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates a dirty filter raises energy use by 5 to 15% (roughly $45–$135 a year). A severely clogged filter is worse still — but the bigger danger isn’t just a higher bill. Once airflow is choked off, the system can’t keep up: it runs nonstop, struggles to hold temperature, and can freeze the coil or overheat the unit — leading to a breakdown and a repair bill far larger than any filter.
Change it at least every 90 days — every 30–60 if you have pets or heavy foot traffic. If you’re unsure how, just ask.
Filter neglect is your responsibility
Changing the filter is the tenant’s job, and our technicians can readily tell when one hasn’t been changed on schedule — a filter caked with dust, along with the buildup it leaves on the coil and blower, makes neglect plain to see. When a dirty or unchanged filter is the cause of a repair, the cost of that repair will be billed to you. Keeping up with a simple, inexpensive filter is the easiest way to avoid that.
Choose the right filter
Pick a lower MERV rating (8–10). Higher ratings trap finer particles but restrict airflow and strain the unit. If you’re worried about air quality, use a standalone HEPA air purifier instead — it cleans the air without choking your system.
A few more ways to protect the system and save money
- Keep vents clear. Your supply vents deliver conditioned air to each room, and your return vents pull air back to the system. Both need an open path. When furniture, rugs, curtains, or boxes cover a vent, you choke that airflow — the room gets uncomfortable, and the system runs longer trying to make up for it. Keep all vents open and unobstructed.
- Don’t close vents in unused rooms. It seems like it should save energy, but it doesn’t. Your system pushes the same volume of air no matter how many vents are open, so closing some doesn’t redirect that air elsewhere — it just builds pressure in the ductwork. That added pressure leads to leaks (so you end up paying to heat and cool your attic or crawlspace), and over time it can crack the heat exchanger or shorten the life of the unit. Leave them open.
- Don’t keep interior doors shut. This catches people by surprise. Most homes have one central return, so air blown into a bedroom has to flow back out — usually under the door — to reach it. Shut that door on a room with no return vent of its own and the air gets trapped, pressurizing the room and restricting airflow much like a closed vent. The system strains, comfort drops, and in summer it can even pull humid outside air into the house. Leaving doors open (or at least cracked) keeps air circulating the way the system was designed for.
- Hold a steady thermostat setting. Our technicians find a consistent temperature is easier on the system than letting the house drift and then forcing it back during peak afternoon hours — that catch-up forces the unit into a much less efficient, more expensive mode (and on a heat pump, it can trip the costly backup heat strips). Cost isn’t linear, either: the further your setting is from the outdoor temperature, the more each added degree costs. The DOE estimates about 1 to 3 percent per degree closer to outside. Note: setting it colder won’t cool your home any faster.
- Report issues promptly. Unusual noises, smells, or weak heating/cooling — tell us right away, before they become costly.
By following these simple steps, you can help keep your HVAC system running smoothly and efficiently — and your energy bills as low as possible.
Thank you,
The Vickie Spurling Realty Team
