Why you should clean your ductless filters.

We always finish our jobs conversing with the customer about the best practices for using and maintaining their systems. When it comes to ductless, the list of maintenance topics is short. Make sure the back of your outdoor unit stays clear of debris such as leaves, branches, cottonwood etc., and make sure you remove and rinse your indoor unit filters often. Mitsubishi recommends cleaning the indoor filters once a month. If your house is quite clean and you don’t have pets or kids, monthly cleaning will be more than enough. If you happen to have multiple dogs as well as kids, you may need to clean your filters even more frequently than every month.

You might be wondering why it’s so important to clean your ductless filters, and the answer is simple. A clean filter will allow air to pass between the mesh, filtering out dust and hair. Once the filter gets clogged, the air takes the path of least resistance, and this tends to be around the sides of the filter. When the air is pulled from around the filter and not through it, much of the dust and hair enters the equipment and sticks to the coil fins and fan blades. A little bit of dust is fine, but once the fan blades become caked with dust, they no longer blow air as they should. Dirt on the coil also limits airflow and reduces the cooling or heating capacity of the unit. With enough accumulation of dust, the unit will barely function. Because of these reasons, it’s crucial that the filter is cleaned at a regular interval.

Below you will see an example of a costly cleaning caused by a lack of filter cleaning. We initially went to this job to perform a routine cleaning because the customer was complaining of reduced airflow, but as we dug deeper, we found more and more accumulation of dust. We had to go as far as completely removing the fan blades to spray them down with the hose outside. After 3 hours of cleaning the unit went back to operating like new.