Hello group.. We recently sold our house and our lovely neighbors across the street (older couple) who live in Colorado in the summer insisted we stay at their house while our new house is being completed. We have been doing some things around their house to show our appreciation. The first thing I mentioned to them as they were leaving was I would change the AC filter..Andy (the wife) indicated to me that Louis (the husband) had just "taken care of it" Okay..Great..Well, in the first week we were there we had noticed that the AC could not cool the house down..I had set the stat on 81 during the day to come on to 79 in the evening..It could not achieve this and would run constantly...So, I started to poke around..First thing I did was to check the filter, so I pulled the side panel off the furnace (Janatrol, doesn't look too old) and what I found inside was one of those expensive electrostatic filters..I pulled it out, and the elements are black so I could not tell if it was clean but I could not see light thru it..I had noticed that it was tilted, like the fan had sucked it upwards. I then put the side panel back on the furnace and turned the AC on and there was a remarkable increase of air flow, even the intake sounded different...I noted the size of the filter and went to HD and bought a good grade filter, but what I found is this..I cannot see how the filter is supposed to be locked in place..The old filter was a 16x25, and I had a hell of a time getting it out the door..Being the fan is mounted so low I had to jimmy it out..Well the new one being more flexible, I was able to get it in there but it seems the hole in the bottom of the furnace is exactly the same size..That would tell me that the filter must need to be wider but from the experience I had that would be nearly impossible to get it in there..In furnaces that I had in the past, there were metal framing that retained the filter..This thing has nothing in the back, nor nothing along the sides..The only thing it has is a lip in the front, about the same size as the edge of the filter and you "wedge" it down there..But be careful, or you push the filter into the lower intake box...It really looks like to me that the filter needs to be wider to cover the hole properly but I don't see how you could get it thru the door..But still, nothing to hold the filter down? It appears to me as soon as the filter gets some crud on it the pressure will just suck it back up too..The side wall of the furnace above the right side of the filter indicates that has happened a lot as there was black crud on the cabinet sides(this was the side the old filter was lifted on)..My concern is what the evap probably looks like...But, with no filter and with this new one, the AC blew hard, and cooled the house..As a matter of fact in the master BR, the air came out so strong it blew the dust off the ceiling fan all over the bed!! I would like to try to fix this for them, aside of having something replaced, but don't know what I should do..Our furnace we had a filter box installed under it so we didn't have this trouble... Any suggestions from the AC guys would be super appreciated...It almost looks like it should have an 18x25 filter if they even make that size but I have no idea how I would get it thru the door..My other thought was to get some 2"x25" metal slats and create a lip along the sides of the opening to prevent the filter from falling in but there is still the issue of holding the filter down... Thanks in advance!!! John
- posted
19 years ago