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[H455]Home Air Duct Cleaning

by Adriana Noton, Adr

The air ducts in your home become clogged with dust and dirt. You may even find cat hair, your hair, and the hair of your visitors. Basically, you can find anything and everything in your air ducts. But where does all of that stuff go if you don't clean it out? Does it all just stay where it is? These are two very good questions, but not many people think to ask these questions because they just don't think of the air ducts that are in their home. If they work, that's sufficient, right?

Well, that's not always sufficient because there is a lot that you don't see.

Why clean air ducts?

When you don't clean out your air ducts, all of the stuff that accumulates in them blow back out into the air. You may not be able to see the dirt and dust that blows around, but it most definitely does. And where does it go? It goes all over your house. It gets on your furniture, in your floor, and in the lungs of your family. If anyone in your home has allergies, this could be a reason why. If this is not the reason why, the dust and dirt that flies around can make things worse.

Eventually, not cleaning your air ducts can clog them. If you notice that one of the vents in your house is not blowing through very much air, then you can bet that there is a lot of gunk hanging out in your air ducts. If this continues to go on, eventually you will find that the vents will have no air coming out of them at all. This can also cause major damage to your air ducts. If they get too much stuff in them, they can start to tear up, which means you could get holes in your ducts. If there are holes in your ducts, heat is not making it to various areas in your home. Instead, it is going outside. This can cost you a lot of money in heating and air costs.

If your home is not getting as warm or as cool as it should be, that is a lot of money that is being thrown out the window. Your heat and air conditioning will continue to kick on to keep your house at the desired temperature.

What to do?

So what you need to do is check out air duct cleaning businesses in your area. If you are concerned about reputation, you can search online for reviews about that company. You can also ask them a lot of questions, such as what sort of experience they have, how long they have been in business, and what methods they use. Be sure to compare prices by calling around to the different companies. In the meantime, compare the answers to your questions. Go with the company whose rates and prices you like the most.

When they arrive, they will get right to business. You want to make sure that you're dealing with a company that uses safe practices as well so that you can go about your business in your home without fear of something terrible happening. You want to feel secure while these individuals are at your home.

So get your air ducts cleaned right now. You will be surprised how much of a difference will be made in your heating and cooling bill, in the number of sneezes that you hear throughout your home, and in how comfortable you are. It is amazing how something so simple can make such an incredible difference in your home and in your wallet.

All year long I'm swamped with junk mail advertising those services that come into your home and actually vacuum out all the accumulated dust and debris (and even mold) that builds up the metal ducts of any sort of forced air heating or air conditioner system. These companies usually pull up to your house in vans that have tremendous vacuum cleaning units in them. They often run large hoses (more like giant tubes) into a home and basically suck out all the dust and debris from the vents of a home. Some actually scrub the insides of the ducts, to get out any mold or solid debris stuck inside the ducts.

These services aren't cheap and usually cost a few hundred dollars up to a few thousand dollars based on the size of your home and the different levels of cleaning service you choose.

If you know your ducts are dirty you can unscrew the air intake vents from the wall and clean a little bit of the ducts yourself. You can use a home vacuum to suck out anything you can see or reach, but just sucking the dust from the 1% of the actual ductwork you can get to doesn't really make me feel too confident about the cleanliness of the 99% you can't get to.

Sellers of duct cleaning services argue that all the dust and debris is being blown into your home and into your lungs every day. Some other people don't agree with that and claim that most of that dust in your ducts is in your home anyway (how else would it get into your air ducts) and you really don't breathe it in because, hey, the dust is in the vents and clearly not blowing around too much. The truth is probably somewhere in between.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has published some documents on the idea of cleaning your air ducts and they're fairly interesting. They note that no studies have actually shown definitively that cleaning your air ducts makes the air in your home any cleaner.

So should you have your air ducts cleaned? Here's a quick run down of when you should and should not bother cleaning your air ducts.

You DO want to consider having your air ducts cleaned if you have any of the following:

Clean your ducts if you have any sort of respiratory or lung disease which can be agitated by dust or tiny airborne particles. You should probably stay out of your home for a day or so after cleaning and you should definitely get your ducts tested by a professional lab. Some duct cleaning companies can help you with this scientific testing.

Clean your ducts if you have had any sort of major or minor construction in your home involving dust, fiberglass or other airborne particles that could have been sucked into the duct system and blown out into the air at a later date. Many contractors will purposely seal the air intake vents in a house if they are working with something extremely dusty.

Clean your ducts if you have any sort of visible mold growth or any sort of positive testing for mold in the air ducts. Professionals can run air tests, or you can get a kit to collect a sample and send it to a lab.

Clean your ducts if you know you have some sort of blockage (full or partial) in your air ducts due to debris.

Clean your ducts if you have seen any sort of evidence of animal activity (droppings, nesting) in your air ducts.

If you don't have any of those problems, then you can probably skip the expensive professional air duct cleaning and simple do a little vacuuming inside the returns yourself. Before you do anything you might want to have your duct system inspected and tuned up by a heating and cooling professional every couple of years just to make sure everything is still working as it should and you can catch any small problems before they get bigger.

Article Source : Pg. 101

About Author

Both Adriana Noton & Jt Miller are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Adriana Noton has sinced written about articles on various topics from Legal Matters, Computers and The Internet and Legal Matters. is an essential service for homes to improve air quality. If you have children or elders in your home, duct cle. Adriana Noton's top article generates over 4400 views. to your Favourites.

Jt Miller has sinced written about articles on various topics from Home Appliances, Home Improvement How to and Jewelry. Visit HomeImprovementsDepot.com to explore more tips and tricks for the average homeowner and amateur handyman.. Jt Miller's top article generates over 60500 views. to your Favourites.