A clean air filter leads to a clean engine. A clean engine leads to heavy equipment and farm machinery that operates more efficiently and more productively.

By cleaning air filters, you promote healthier and longer-lasting engines in your fleet. That’s because air filters are a primary line of defense against potentially harmful contaminants that would otherwise damage engines.

That’s why it’s important to keep air filters as clean as possible. Let’s look a little closer at why cleaning heavy duty air filters is a wise choice.

Air filters protect heavy equipment engines

Let’s make sure we cover the basics first: how exactly air filters work to protect heavy equipment and farm machinery engines.

Air filters act as an engine’s primary defense against contaminants. Those contaminants, if they were to reach the equipment’s engine block, could cause a good deal of damage to the engine, resulting in costly repairs.

Much of the large equipment and machinery in use today in off-road conditions have a two-stage filter system. With this type of system, there is an inner and outer stage of the air filter.

The inner stage serves as a safety element of sorts. It’s job is to protect the engine in case the first filter, larger and located on the outside of the inner element, should fail.

When some part of the filter fails, contaminated air, dust particles and other harmful elements could reach the engine, disrupting the combustion process and causing problems. These problems could include damage to rings, cylinders and other vital parts of the engine.

So, unless you want to risk damaging equipment, it is best to keep air filters clean and working as efficiently as possible.

Clean air filters save fuel

Aside from helping to prevent critical engine component breakdowns, properly working air filters will also give your machinery a boost in fuel efficiency. In general, the larger the equipment you or your crew are working with, the more fuel you could save with a clean air filter.

Let’s use large combines as an example. The larger combines will use three to five more gallons of fuel per hour if the air filter is 50 to 75 percent clogged. If you are working a 12 hour day out in the field, then that equals out to 60 gallons of fuel. Assuming a gallon of fuel costs you $4, those extra gallons add up quickly to $240.

By cleaning your air filter, you should see some very real results that translate directly to a fatter wallet. Over a year, you could see savings of $10,000 per vehicle in fuel economy when using Air Filter Blaster technology.

We’ve tested this too, so we have the data to back up this information.

Air filter cleaning will decrease engine stress

Another detrimental aspect of all that dirt and dust reaching heavy equipment or farm machinery engines is the added stress the engine goes through just to operate as needed.

Clean air filters will result in better engine performance, better engine life and reduced engine maintenance. Those benefits protect not only your engines, but also the business’s bottom line.

A clean air filter is a green air filter

On top of the financially beneficials reasons to clean air filters, there’s also environmentally conscious incentives. That’s because a clean air filter is a good environmental choice.

Clean filters lead to lower engine emissions.

Plus, you should be able to see reduced oil consumption and better ability to meet tough government fuel efficiency standards in your equipment.

How the Filter Blaster works

These benefits are at the heart of our Filter Blaster technology.

Our technology self-regulates air supply that is used during cleaning to make sure the filter is not damaged. It’s simple to use, as well. Just connect the Filter Blaster shaft with the rotor head, insert the Filter Blaster into the filter, ensuring the filter element is sealed. Then, turn on the ball valve and move the device shaft up and down to clean the filter.

This method of cleaning air filter is quicker, more effective and carries far less risk of causing damage to the filter than similar products or other cleaning methods.

Here’s what manufacturers say

Many air filter manufacturers may discourage cleaning air filters and won’t cover the warranties of cleaned filters. However, even they acknowledge that some equipment owners and maintenance supervisors trust cleaning and reusing heavy equipment air filters as a reliable way to reduce operating costs.

Take Cummins Filtration, for example. After acknowledging that many professionals believe cleaning air filters does have its benefits, they provide a few good reminders about how to go about it the right way.

First, heavy equipment owners and operators should do their research on any products and services they might invest in to clean their machinery’s heavy duty air filters. There is some risk of damage if they don’t do this.

In addition, great care must be taken when cleaning air filters. If the filter is not cleaned in an already tidy environment, then the process could make the filter even dirtier. A visual inspection should always be done before the cleaning actually begins, too. If the filter is damaged in any way, then it should probably be replaced rather than cleaned.

Finally, to avoid unnecessary damage, never hit the filter element with a tool or up against a hard surface, scrape dirt and dust from the media surface or disassemble for cleaning.

Try Air Filter Blaster

Hopefully by now we’ve shown you enough evidence that cleaning heavy equipment air filters can benefit the engines in your fleet. If you want to get started cleaning air filters, then there’s no better product available on the market today than the Filter Blaster.

Thanks to our technology and design, you can clean air filters with the Filter Blaster without having to worry about causing damage to the filter itself. When using the Filter Blaster, the amount of pressure used is regulated and has multiple edges to ensure a snug and centered fit on any filter.

We understand if you have more questions, though. That’s why we have put together a frequently asked questions page that goes into more detail on many common questions and concerns.

Go ahead and contact us, too, if you would like to learn more about Filter Blaster.