Making Furnace Filters Last Longer

Furnace filters clean the air but need replaced so soon!

Fridays at work are opportunities for improvement.  When we don’t have meetings and trainings to become better educators, we clean and plan in the classroom.  Today was definitely a day to work on the classroom.  I sanitized all of the toys, passed out old art projects, painted the walls where they were nicked, and did a dozen other things.  I somehow finished my to-do list and was looking for a task that would keep me busy, so I decided to dust the heating and air system intake.  When I finished dusting, I opened the panel to find the filter was completely filthy and splattered with dust bunnies.  When I reported this to my boss, she told me she would tell the landlord so he can replace it.  In the meantime, she gave me a neat trick that can help furnace filters last longer and stay cleaner, which is both economical and better for the lungs.

To clean the filter, I removed it and plugged in the vacuum cleaner.  This seems like an unlikely combination, and I was skeptical if it would work or if I would just end up destroying the filter.  I plugged up the vacuum cleaner and used the crevice tool to vacuum the filter.  Immediately dust and clumps of fuzz were sucked away, leaving a dramatically cleaner filter.  This is not a permanent fix to the problem of dirty filters, as it did not make the filter pristine, but I was able to remove approximately two cups of filth from the filter, a feat that was both remarkable and disgusting.  Even my boss was surprised to see the sheer volume of debris.  This was an unexpected but genius hint.  I’ll have to mine my boss’s mind for more little tricks, which shouldn’t be too hard—she has tons!