Day 16. Clean Air Vents and Change Furnace Filter

Day 16 of “A 30 Day Guide to Spring Cleaning“.

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How often should you clean your air vents? Yearly, and to prevent allergen build up, a full duct cleaning wouldn’t hurt every 3-5 years.

How often should you change your furnace filter? It’s recommended to change this every 3 months, but you should check this monthly.

Alright ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to talk about the things no one wants to talk about. How dirty are your air vents? When was the last time you cleaned them? Do you feel ashamed of what could be lurking under those openings in your floors, walls, or ceilings? Cleaning our air vents isn’t something that we think about that often really, but it can make such a difference to your home and to your health!

Your air vents can hold a majority of a percentage of the allergens in your home. Are your allergies acting up this spring? I bet they would be a lot better if your main living areas had a drastic decrease in the amount of dust and allergens in the air. When there is dust and allergens built up in your air vents, it just circulates these through your house, polluting your air. A full duct cleaning would be necessary to help remove most of the dust and allergens, but why not do what we can in between these cleanings to help keep up?

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What to clean:

• Air vents
• Cold air return
• Area around furnace
• Furnace filter

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Supplies needed:

• Vacuum
• Screw driver
• Furnace filter (look at the size of your current filter to determine what size you need)
• Recommended:
  • Envirocloth, 3M Filtrete Furnace Filter ‘paid links’, Shark Rotator Vacuum, Dusting Mitt
• Alternative:
  • Any vacuum with hose attachments, furnace filter in your size, wet cloth for wiping

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Cleaning Air Vents

It is very important, when trying to reduce air pollution, allergens and dust in your house, that you clean not only the outside of your air vents, but also the inside, and that you have a clean furnace filter in place. Also, if you have kids and/or pets, you will be surprised what you find in these!

Step 1: Locate all your air vents inside your house. You will want to focus on the lower air vents since dust and dirt settles, but you will still want to clean your upper air vents as well. Determine what kind of screw driver you will need to remove your vent covers. Turn off your heat or air to be sure it won’t kick on while you are cleaning.

Step 2: Get your vacuum ready with your hose attachments. You will want the longer slim attachment on your vacuum hose in order to remove as much dust as possible from the vent grating and inside the vents themselves. It’s easiest to move from one vent to the next, completing the cleaning for each.

Step 3: Vacuum the outside and around your vent with the hose attachment to prevent any further debris from falling inside your vent when opening it. Then remove the cover.

Step 4: Once you have removed the cover, use the hose attachment to get as far inside your vent as possible. Make sure to look around any curves or corners in the vents to make sure you have vacuumed all the debris that has accumulated inside.

Step 5: After you have completed vacuuming all the debris and dust from inside the vent you will want to take your wet envirocloth to clean around the vent and inside the vent/duct itself (if possible) to remove any dirt or dust build up. Then take your dusting mitt, wet this down as well, and use it to clean the grating of your air vent cover. The dusting mitt has longer fibers that can work their way inside the grating to get the dust out in between.

Step 6: Replace your vent cover and the screws that held it on (if there were any). And that’s it, you are all done. Repeat these steps on all vent covers. If working on vents above your eyes, you may want to use safety glasses or eye protection.

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Changing Your Furnace Filter

Changing your furnace filter is actually super easy to complete, although furnaces can have many different filter sizes and placements (usually found on the side between the furnace the the air duct that attaches), so you will want to check your furnace filter for location and the size. The size will be listed on the edge of your filter, and will look similar to this format: 14x20x1. Make sure you purchase the correct size for your furnace.

I highly recommend the 3M Filtrete Furnace Filter ‘paid links’ shown here, for allergen and dust reduction.

Step 1: Check your furnace filter for placement and size, and be sure to have the correct size filter to install. If you are unable to locate your furnace filter or determine the size, you can look up your furnace make and model to determine this information.

Step 2: Vacuum, using the hose attachment, around your furnace to remove any dust, dirt or debris. You can also vacuum off the outside of your furnace and wipe it down to remove any remaining dust.

Step 3: Remove your furnace filter from it’s current location, and check it to determine if it needs replacement. To check your filter, hold it up to the light, if you cannot clearly see light coming through it needs to be replaced. If it has been more than 3 months since your last replacement, you will want to replace this anyways. If you are struggling to remove your filter, you can carefully use a pair of needle nose pliers to grip the side and pull straight up or out depending on the location.

Step 4: Put your new furnace filter in. The filter should have the arrow shown above pointing towards the blower motor, typically located on/in the furnace itself. You can just dispose of your old filter, is it not needed.

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If you have any questions, feel free to post them in the comments and I would be happy to get back with you.

Check out Day 15. Polishing Household Hardware here.

Check out Day 17. Washing Your Curtains here.

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