How often should residential air ducts be cleaned?

Duct Cleaning is Normally Overrated and Under Performed

Never, yet we have quite often.

Why are you asking about duct cleaning? Why are doing this research?

Congratulations. You have landed on one the most honest duct cleaning web pages on the Internet. Most people inquire about duct cleaning because of the following:

Lung illness – respiratory ailments
New baby
Dust accumulating in the home
The neighbor said it was a good thing
Strange smell

No Health Benefits

There are no proven health benefits to duct cleaning. That being said I cannot fathom how removing dirt and debris from the very item that circulates air throughout your home not to be beneficial. Some ducts are very dirty and some are not. Cleaning the ducting will do little to help with lung ailments and respiratory problems, but we have a solution for that….keep reading.

New Baby

Yes, we all want it perfect for the new addition to the family and cleaning the ducts is one loose end that can be easily and affordably closed. The dust in the ducts has been accumulating for years and a through cleaning most likely should be done, but it will just build up again in a short time unless the reason that it is present is resolved. We have a solution for this….keep reading.

Dust Accumulating in the Home

Duct cleaning will do nothing to solve this. The dust in your ducting is not coming from your ducting. It is coming from another source and being deposited in your ducting. Removing will help from the dust becoming dislodged and spreading throughout your home, but duct cleaning is not a source management tool. It is a symptom abatement tool. We have solutions….keep reading.

The Neighbor Said it was a Good Thing.

Your neighbor may or may not have been sold a bill of goods. Rarely do we see duct cleaning as being primarily beneficial. It is secondary beneficial as it is removal of contaminants rather that reducing or eliminating the number and amount of contaminates in your breathing air.

Strange Smell

While duct cleaning can leave your ducting, and the air flowing through, smelling cleaning, it is little more than a high powered vacuum cleaner. Would you consider your carpet cleaned is you did a once over with you vacuum cleaner? Scents and biocides can be sent down you ducting. The scents are nothing but perfume. The biocides, if left wet long enough (usually 10 minutes), can and will kill odor causing bacteria, but usually enough of these to actually coat the inside of the ducting will fill your home with air born poison. I have usually the biocides many times in a home ducting system. They are used to treat the evaporator coil and work well for that, but I have yet to ever see mildew or mold in an above ground air ducting system outside of the evaporator coil.

Mold

We have numerous systems and homes tested for mold over the years. Every single home has had mold spores and this normal and nothing to worry about until those mold spores get out of control. Conditions must be right for the mold to get out of control. We have solutions for mold reduction….keep reading.

Why Never?

Air ducts should never be cleaned because they should never get dirty in the first place. The National Air Duct Cleaners Association has stated that residential air ducts (This page does not pertain to commercial air ducting. That is completely different.) should be cleaned every 5 years and after every home renovation (ie. Bathroom remodel).

We Do Air Ducting Cleaning Often, but….

We are a solutions HVAC contractor. We are here solve the problems you are having, not band-aid them and hit you up again next year for the same problem. We will band-aid them for you (within the scope of the Uniform Mechanical Code) after you have been informed of the solutions if you so wish.

The Real Solutions

Most of the time that we are called out for duct cleaning the reason that the ducts appear to need cleaning is that they are not sealed properly. It isn't even the filter's fault, even though most filters do little to nothing to clean the clean the air. If you have a loose ducting connections in your attic (over 90% of all systems have many), then the air is escaping into your attic. Your attic is outside the heating and cooling envelope of your HVAC system. As air is pumped out into your attic the house develops a vacuum. Your home will not sustain a vacuum and air will leak into your home to replace the air that is being pumped out into your attic.

The Contamination and Dirt

The air that is replacing the lost air in the attic will be drawn from around windows, doors, plumbing connections, electrical connections, down the water heater vent, through the exhaust fans in your bathroom, down the chimney and through the kitchen exhaust hood. Paints a nice picture doesn't it? As you are running your heating and cooling system thinking that brand new clean filter is doing its job the very system that is supposed to be cleaning the air you are breathing is causing contaminated to flood your home.

The Real Duct Cleaning Solution

Call us out and well will test your ducts. We will tell you how well your system is running. How much air you are losing, if any, and we can even seal your ducting. If you need better air cleaning we can offer a variety of choices including the Perfect16 HEPA cleaning system and the American Standard AccuClean.

All of these issues can be solved during a minor service call. Many of these can be prevented by simply having your furnace tuned up each year before heating season. Give us a call and find out for yourself just how simple and affordable your furnace repair can be.