There is always something new to learn. A new horizon to befriend…especially for the homeowner. And where I live, in just the past week, both my heat AND my air-conditioning have gone on. Fickle spring weather? Climate change? It doesn’t matter…I still have to cope.
After over 40 years in Vermont, I know about cold weather. I know, for instance, how to shovel snow. I don’t particularly like to, but I know how. I even have a preference about which sort
of snow shovels are better. (The ones with crooked handles.) I know tools are specially designed to remove snow from roofs and ice from sidewalks. There are even sharp, clumsy-looking cleats you can strap on over your shoes or winter boots so you won’t slip on that pesky snow or ice. I know about all these things.
But I am still learning about the seasonal changes and their nuances here in the south. I am largely ignorant about how to cope with the hot and humid southern weather. I know nothing about air conditioning, specifically air conditioner filters.
After living here in a Southern state for three years, I was surprised to learn that I should have changed those filters! Who knew? In fact, I was informed by the sincere young a/c repairman that every three months was preferable. Oh. Frankly, I’d forgotten I even had them; no alarm had gone off, even after three years.
So I took a look. The cardboard throw-away ones were easy. The size was printed very big on the side, which was visible once I scraped off the layer of gray dust bunny-like stuff that had crept around that edge. So I just had to go buy another! But then I noticed that the three vents in the house were all different sizes. How inconvenient is that? Poor planning, I ranted to anyone who would listen.
This time, a nice young neighbor, born and raised here, explained the relationship between square footage and vent size and placement. Oh.
Well, but not all my a/c filters were those cardboard ones. It turned out I had some “microstatic” reusable somethings in a couple of the vents. I was supposed to clean and re-install these.
Okay, but there were no directions on how to clean said items. And boy! Were they filthy. I only knew just how dirty because there was one corner in the larger filter that wasn’t quite clogged up yet; I could see through it, and see all the pieces of yuk shaking around while trapped in its reusable screen grid.
So using my common sense, I tried vacuuming it. And vacuuming it. And then, with a different brush head, I tried vacuuming it all to no avail. I googled “how to clean re-usable air conditioner filters” and found nothing. Evidently, this is so self-evident it is not even on YouTube. Hesitantly I took the smaller of the two reusable filters to the kitchen sink and tried water. I used the sink hose on it for a looong time. As I suspected, it all just turned to mud in all those tiny screen chambers in there.
I was beginning to wish for the old Vermont me who knew what she was doing.
I gave up and went to the local bargain store to replace the cardboard one. While there I looked at the packaging for the reusable kind and, Voila! Finally saw some directions – in tiny print – for cleaning them. Hose. Outdoor hose. Full throttle. OK! Success!
Except…when I got home, I realized that I had bought the wrong size throw-away filter. …Heavy sigh.
However, I spent a joyful hour spraying the heck out of those reusable screens, watching over 3 years of accumulated crap wash out onto my patio stones. I made a concerted effort not to think of what I had been breathing in my oh-so-very-closed-up-in-JulyAugustSeptember-house.
Ah, the satisfaction of house-wifery!
Now I can add air conditioner filter replacement and cleaning to my list of skills, right there after snow shoveling.