The common air conditioner mistake costing Aussies $400 a year
Air conditioners might be the cheapest heating option and most effective cooling appliance we have, but one simple mistake is making them a lot more expensive than they need to be.
Research from iSelect has found 36 per cent of Aussies surveyed are only cleaning their air conditioner filters once a year, while 12 per cent admit they’ve never done it.
Air conditioners can also be more efficient to run if you set them at recommended temperatures for cooling and heating. iStockphoto
Not only do dirty air conditioner filters result in dusty, mouldy air being blown into your home, they make the appliance work harder, which increases the cost of your electricity bill.
Daikin Australia estimates clean or new filters can reduce an air conditioner’s power consumption by five to 15 per cent.
The extra cost from dirty filters ranges from $80 for just a five per cent loss of efficiency to $240 for a 15 per cent reduction and $400 for a 25 per cent loss.
Air conditioners should be cleaned every two weeks, or at the very least, monthly.
Professional cleaner and owner of Housekeeping Heroes, Sara Allan, showed how quick and easy they are to clean in a new TikTok.
“All I do is remove the filters and use the brush attachment on my vacuum to remove and dislodge all that dust. But sometimes, if these filters have not been cleaned in forever the build up may be sticky and there may be mould forming, so you’ll have to do a mould treatment first and then wash them out instead,” she said.
The filters Allan cleaned in her tutorial video didn’t have any mould so after vacuuming she wiped the filters with a cloth that had been sprayed with a multipurpose cleaner.
“It is crucial that you clean both sides of the filters and then work top to bottom on the air conditioning unit itself to remove all dust and debris that will be lodged in the small crevices and in the unit itself,” she said.
Once the filters are clean and dry, they can be popped back into the air conditioner.
The other appliance that can cost more to run when not cleaned regularly is the fridge, which has coils on the back of the appliance that can get covered in dust. Coils need cleaning once a year.
The spring cleaning survey showed that Aussies fared better with cleaning the fridge than the air con with 12 per cent doing it weekly, 25 per cent tackling it monthly, 26 per cent doing it every three to six months and 21 per cent cleaning it yearly. However, it wasn’t specified whether they were cleaning the interior shelves and compartments or the coils at the back.
According to Fast Fridge Repairs, dirty coils have the potential to add $10 to $20 to your power bill each month by making the appliance less efficient.
