Weekly Maintenance for your Home

May – Week 21

Just like preventative maintenance on your car, if you take care of a few small items around the house every week, you can avoid many emergency breakdowns and expensive repairs.

Filters

Yes, you need to check your filters, even in the Spring. I really am a pain about this filter business, but the reality is that we use filters for many things in our house and they all help to improve the air quality of the house.

If you are shutting down your furnace for the year, change that filter, just so you don't have a dirty old filter growing things all summer long. Of course if you have air conditioning hooked up to the furnace ducts, you will have to continue checking those filters month after month. Then again, different houses have different dust generation, from both indoor activities and the neighbourhood dust levels, so eventually you will find the right pattern for each filter in your own house.

Have you made yourself a list of your filters? It could be a good idea, with information on what filters you use and how often you find you need to change them:

• Furnace / Air Conditioner
• Floor grill filters
• Ventilation system like an HRV
• Table-top air cleaners
• Range Hood
• Vacuum cleaner
• Shop dust catcher
• Clean the clothes dryer lint filter with soap and water

The SEARCH tab above has more information on "Filters for Air Quality".