My girlfriend has been in her townhome a few years and said she had never changed her filters. I was gonna replace them for her but i’m stumped. I’ve looked at every ceiling surface (3 floors) and every wall and there is no filter grate.
Is there some sort of newish filter system I may be overlooking? One that isn’t the large metal cover you pop off and put in a filter? Place was built mid 90’s FWIW. I’ve literally walked along every wall and looked behind each piece of furniture and nothing.
Where’s the air intake at? That’s the first thing to find. Try wetting a finger to tell if the air is coming out or going in to a particular grate.
Also, it’s a townhouse - are you sure the building maintenance people don’t change them? The apartments I have lived at, they did, because a bad filter can mess up the condenser coils of the A/C system and cause it to fail sooner. The higher airflow restriction increases the load on the fan motor, and the condenser coils get clogged with dust, increasing load further.
More fan motor stress means the A/C will be slower to cool the house down, which means it will put more stress on the compressor and cost more energy.
With that said, it’s all relative - more stress doesn’t mean instant failure, just probably a failure sooner, which could be why the A/C still works in your girlfriend’s townhouse. Also, the filters don’t really clean much of the dust out of the air, which is why her place is about as dusty as anywhere else.
My wife’s condo had a filter holder installed at the main air return register in a hallway, sort of like the places you’ve been looking.
Our current house has the filter holder right at the furnace, just a few feet from the burner/evaporator. Try looking there.
I have one where the filter is located right where the intake duct connects to the unit itself. Have you checked the actual air handler?
You are saying that your GF has her own AC/Heat unit in her townhouse?
As SeaDragonTattoo said, they are often right next to the unit inside the air handler (the air intake for the unit). This can be above, below, or on the side of the unit.
Ditto on looking at the furnace/AC unit for filter.
If you find that the filter is missing, it’s best to get a HVAC technician there. The unit may be clogged with dust and not working economically. I once moved into an apartment where the filter was missing and the AC barely kept up during the summer. I removed about a bucket-worth of dirt clogging it up. I’m not talking one of those somewhat bogus duct mold things, but dirt right at the AC.
Tip: If you have allergies or pets, the higher priced filters are well worth it over the cheap fiberglass filters. Just remember to change them about every 90 days no matter what filter you use.
My forced-air furnace in my ranch house had its replaceable filter where the ductwork met the furnace unit. It was kind of nondescript…you slipped it in to a vertical slot.
Now I have a fancy e-lec-tronic filter with HEPA and ions and stuff. It doesn’t get replaced but I do need to vacuum the plates every 6 months or so. It’s a unit that sits horizonally within the ductwork next to the furnace. It doesn’t say “filter” on it - you gotta know what it is.
That’s what I have. While there are a number of intake grates scattered around the house none of them have a filter right there as used to be convention. In fact I was told to definately not use a filter there. Instead, up in the attic where the actual unit is there’s a single large filter right where the collected intake meets the unit. It’s larger than the older conventional filters too, much thicker, and in our case measures 25" L x 25" W x 4" Thick. Each unit will have one and it’s of course a little easier to pull out and put back in when the unit isn’t running.
There is such a thing as a self-washing electrostatic air filter or cleaner, but they’re pretty rare. My mother’s house was built with a standard type electrostatic filter, and once a month or so, or when the thing started snapping and popping, we needed to take the thing out and wash it.
Mercifully, when the electronics died, we were able to slide a standard size filter into the housing. The unit was located in the ductwork immediately next to the furnace, well away from any return vents.
Is your girlfriend leasing/renting, or did she buy the townhome outright?
It’s not an apartment. It’s a condo. She owns it. Its one of those 3 story type condos attached to another on either side and then the larger building separated from the next by a small lawn/common area. I thought that style building was called a townhome. Maybe I used the wrong word.
Anyways I looked at where the ac/heatpump connects to the back of the unit and dont see a place for a filter there either. Weird.
What’s the make and model? You might be able to look up the owner’s manual on the webz. Or the manual might even be taped to the unit somewhere.
There is this on the ceiling of the middle level: http://i43.tinypic.com/9h2x4m.jpg
It’s about 12"X12". Looks like where maybe a small filter should be. It’s held in place with 4 screws, not the usual latch to give easy access to a filter as in every other home i’ve seen. I removed it and there was no filter in place and also no slot for a filter to rest against, just an open hole leading directly to a duct.
That’s essentially what I have, Quintas. For me it’s just an intake and I’m not to put a filter there as it combined with the filter next to my unit would inhibit the flow too much.
The system must have a blower unit somewhere. I’d look there. In addition to the narrow slots others have mentioned that fit the panel type filters, some units have a larger filter with pleats that you mount in a frame that fits inside the duct. Like this.
That picture probably is a return duct, but probably doesn’t have a filter behind it. I’d guess it probably is on the furnace itself like people above have said. I worked at a Precisionaire filter factory for a summer and filters that small existed but were uncommon - we built and sold 16x20, 16x25 and 20x25 filters far above anything else.
A house I lived in for a while had a filter in the small return (“intake”) upstairs*. But chances are that one doesn’t, because it’s screwed in place. If there’s a filter behind it, they usually make it pretty easy to get into without tools. I agree that it’s almost certainly at the air handler unit.
*In addition to a much bigger one at the main return downstairs.
Here’s a diagram of a central a/c unit with explanation
This is similar to my set up but in addition I have a heat exchanger for the oil fired furnace. If you have gas you probably have the same thing. Electric furnaces probably don’t need an exchanger.
I used to use filters that had a pretty open mesh and probably wouldn’t catch anything smaller than a cigarette butt. Not replacing something like that probably wouldn’t make a lot of difference in the air flow, but I wouldn’t swear to that.
Now I use better filters that aren’t quite high-grade HEPA but you can’t see through them either. I would guess that, as already mentioned, if those aren’t replaced, they’ll reduce the volume of air passing through and put a strain on the motor.
Beyond that, if you have a heat exchanger in there as well, I can easily see that overheating and becoming damaged. Maybe one of the article I linked to will say something about that if that’s relevant to your situation.
Post a pic of the air handler unit so we can see (if possible). OR, the manufacturer number and model.
Mine is accessed via a tiny horizontal plate that clips out. That plate is right above the galvanized metal box and below the handler that the unit sits on.
If all the other vents are screwed down then that is where it is.
It’s nice when you have one that just slides in and out of an opening. There are some models that expect you to arrange two filiters in a “V” shape inside the return air duct. You basically have to reach up into the duct and blindly try to balance the filters on a small ledge in the middle of the duct with sharp edges.
This video demonstrates how to install V-shaped filters.
One other thing, unless you have a specific need like an allergy or other medical condition, avoid buying the super filters. Just buy an average filter. The blower has to work harder to suck air through the super filters which will shorten its life. An inexpensive middle-of-the-road filter is all most people need.
