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Ten years ago I would have scoffed at the idea that a ‘premium’ air filter would make a difference in ones furnace. I was more about being cheap than about being smart and cost-effective.
About that time my husband started becoming sensitive to allergens in the air. Neither of us having had any problems with allergens growing up, we were quite perplexed about what to do about it. That’s when I began to take a pro-active stance to keeping our home as free of allergens as I could.
Mom Central invited me to share Expert Tips from Jodi Marks on ways to winterize your home. Home improvement expert Jodi Marks is the former co-host of HGTV’s Fix It Up! and co-author of Fix It In a Flash, a how-to book on the basics of home repair. She is currently a cast member of the show Today’s Homeowner with Danny Lipford and is an expert on the Filtrete Healthy Home Authority panel.
Homeowners often ‘summerize’ the home by sealing up windows and inspecting the furnace, but it’s just as important to ‘winterize’ the home for cooler temperatures. In addition to keeping the home warm and safe for family and holiday guests, preparing the home for winter can help reduce monthly energy bills.
- When sealing up the home to help keep the warm air in, keep in mind that indoor air can be two to five times worse than outdoor air, according to the U.S. Environment Protection Agency (EPA). To help improve your home’s indoor air quality and keep your heating system running
efficiently, use a high performance filter, like the Filtrete Elite Allergen Reduction filter from 3M. It captures 94 percent of large airborne particles, such as pet dander, mold spores and dust mite debris, from the air passing through the filter. The EPA suggests changing your filter every three months, so a good rule of thumb is to change your filter at the start of every season. - Properly installing weatherproofing around your doors and windows and ensuring the insulation in your attic hasn’t gotten compacted can reduce air leakage in the home and help you save on your energy bill, according to Energy Star. Be sure to check around the dryer vent, the kitchen exhaust hood vent and even the water bib for your garden hose. These are prime areas where warm air can escape through your walls to the outside.
- No one enjoys coming home to a frigid house at the end of a long day, but no one wants to expense of running the heat at full blast all the time, either. An easy solution is to use a programmable thermostat which can also help to reduce energy costs and keep your home warm and toasty.
- The leaves are falling from the trees as winter quickly approaches. Heavily weighted down gutters from water and leaves can begin to pull them away from the fascia boards and lead to structural problems down the road. Be sure to keep your gutters clean and ensure they drain water properly by filling in low areas with soil and slope the ground away from your home’s foundation.
- A large and costly roof problem can be avoided by identifying small leaks, which can occur from the effects of strong winds that push rainwater under the shingles of your roof. Just because shingles are still in place doesn’t mean that there aren’t tears in them that could result in leaking, so be sure to have your roof inspected by a licensed professional.
The Filtrete Elite Allergen Reduction Filter not only vastly improves the air quality in your home, it also keeps your air conditioning and heating systems running efficiently, saving on utilities and maintenance costs. The electrostatic filter attracts and captures airborne dust, pollen, dust-mite debris, lint, mold spores, pet dander, smoke, smog, bacteria, particles that can carry viruses, and particles that carry odors. With each pass through the specially pleated filter, the air in your living space improves, making for a healthier home environment.
Because of the improvement in home air quality, that hopefully means taking less allergy medication and fewer trips to the doctor because of allergen related illnesses. Which equates to more money in your wallet, which is a great thing around the holidays. While these filters cost more than a ‘cheaper’ one, in the long run because of the air quality and the more efficient running of your air and cooling systems – it’s a wiser way to spend your money. We also find that when using a cheap filter that we have to replace the filters more frequently, not really saving us that much money in that case, since the Filtrete Elite Allergen Reduction Filter can last up to three months. That’s the difference between being cheap and being smart and cost-effective as I’ve found out over the years.
I hope you found these tip helpful as a start to winterizing your home this year.
“I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of Filtrete and received a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate.”
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Tammy Litke is a Dallas blogger, blogging since 2008. She loves to watch movies, play video games, spend time in the kitchen, and travel. Between recipes and reviews you’ll find many helpful and some just plain funny posts on her blog. Welcome, pull up a chair and stay for a while!