Too often someone gets cheap just to save a dollar, and ends up spending much more in the long run with fixes, repairs, or replacements.
My college roommate tried to forgo oil changes in his old Pontiac Grand Am.
With over 300,000 miles on the engine, he could not afford to mix a single oil change let alone five. It was no surprise to any of his friends when his car inexplicably died on the side of the interstate while driving to work one day. We all told him that the oil changes would keep the car running and neglecting them would kill the engine much faster than it would normally. He eventually learned his lesson, but now he’s making a similar mistake with his air conditioner and the filters he puts inside. His condo is a block down the street from mine and I often drop in to say hi at the last minute. Yesterday I caught him cleaning his washable air conditioner filter in his bathroom tub. I couldn’t believe it, because I had heard nothing but bad things about these a/c filters. First of all, their mesh isn’t fine enough to collect small dust particles let alone bacteria or viruses. You might as well run the a/c with no filter at all while all of your home’s dust gets to coat the evaporator coil as the system cycles. Surprisingly, that’s not the worst thing about washable air conditioner filters. For me, I am more worried about how they’re difficult to dry completely and the mold that can grow in your air conditioner after cleaning the filter and putting it back into the machine. I told him that he’s better off spending $12 on a good filter every four to six weeks instead. His health is at stake with this kind of cheap behavior.