By Gail Marsh
I don’t know about you, but I rarely look up when I’m inside our RV. That changed a few days ago. I happened to be contemplating very deep thoughts (read: relaxing) on the sofa when I noticed the intake air vent above me. Hmm… it looked dusty. Really dusty! “Is there a way to clean that?” I wondered. Because the vent was too high to reach, I went back to the bathroom where I could easily reach the vent. Wow! This one was dusty, too!
Taking apart the air vent
Not wanting to break anything, I gingerly fingered all around the air vent. Giving a gentle pull, the vent assembly easily came down. It looked like this:
I suppose I could have washed the entire vent cover assembly, but I wanted to make sure that the foam filter got clean.
I removed the bracket that holds the filter. The bracket is held in place by tension. I gently pushed the side brackets back as I pulled up on the top brackets and – voila! – the foam filter was free. Not only did the filter hold a lot of dust particles, but it also had a fair amount of sawdust!
I proceeded to wash the filter in warm water and Dawn dish soap. A swish-swish was all it took, and the filter was clean! (How did I know? I could see through it!) I blotted the foam between towels to dry. Then I quickly washed the plastic vent cover, too. I reassembled the unit and gently pushed it back into place.
After cleaning all of the intake air vents, I felt much better. The air conditioner seemed to breathe a happy sigh of relief, as well. That’s a very deep thought. I should probably contemplate that…
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RVDT2901
My bathroom and shower ones are tiny and fiddly. I use folded packing tape and pull the dust and dirt off with the sticky part.
We FT and clean our filters on the 1st of every month. It’s amazing how dirty they actually get in that amount of time. Our A/C’s run much more efficiently too!