Your heat had been running constantly, all the way through a rough, long winter. Now your central air conditioning has been running non-stop through the dog days of summer. You can't remember when the last time you had your air ducts cleaned was, but you know it's been quite a while. You know that it needs to be done, but you don't know how to find the right person to do it and you really haven't the foggiest idea of how much it should cost you.

The cost of a residential air duct cleaning can depend on several things, but some of the major factors include: the size of the home to be serviced, the number of units that need to be cleaned, how regularly the units are used and how much dirt is built up in the ducts.

One thing is for sure though, you don't want a fly-by-night contractor performing your work, and you want it done by qualified professionals.

A good, complete cleaning, done by a reputable company should probably cost you somewhere between four hundred dollars (about four hundred and ten Canadian) on the low end and fourteen hundred dollars (about fourteen hundred and thirty-five Canadian) on the high end, mostly depending on the factors mentioned above.

Here are some things that need to be considered when getting an estimate:

If a company's price quote seems too low, then there is probably a good reason that it seems too low. Maybe the company isn't licensed, maybe they aren't insured, or maybe they aren't using all of the proper and necessary air duct cleaning equipment to do the job the right way.

Make sure that when you are getting estimates that your air duct cleaning will be done by licensed, bonded and insured professionals who are going to be doing all of the work that is customary with a complete air duct cleaning. Make sure that the estimate includes the cleaning of all registers, cleaning of the coils and the fan and the inside of the duct work in its entirety.

The National Air Duct Cleaners Association and the Environmental Protection Agency warn that consumers should be cautious towards cleaning services who guarantee the positive health benefits of a duct cleaning, because as of yet there is no real proof that a person will become healthier simply by having their air ducts cleaned. The NADCA also warns against cleaning services that offer very low initial costs and promises that your entire job will be completed in less than an hour.

To get a complete and effective cleaning, all of the parts of your air duct system must be tended to with the appropriate equipment - this probably won't be the most expensive maintenance procedure that you'll ever have performed on your home, but if an estimate is drastically lower than the low end number mentioned above, there could very well be some kind of catch that could end up costing you a lot more money in the long run.

Saving money is always appealing, getting a great deal on a product or a service is a great feeling, but in the case of someone performing an air duct cleaning on your home, the risk of getting shoddy work for a low price simply isn't worth it. The heating and air conditioning system of your home is very important, when you have work that needs to be done on your system it should only be performed by qualified, licensed and insured professionals to ensure that the work is done properly the first time. Your duct work is in use almost all year long, even if the lowest estimate that you receive is near the high end of the spectrum, it will be well worth it if you are sure that the work is being done by people who know what they are doing and that your system will run problem free until it's time for another cleaning.