Quote:
Originally Posted by MBAtarga
My independent AC guy says don't bother. He claims it causes a LOT of "newly" loosened dust that will constantly spit out as the AC fan runs.
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I would agree with this in a home that doesn't have the crap from demolition/renovations in the ductwork and that has been running a good quality air filter.
Ductwork under floor registers is easy to clean out with your vacuum or shop vac.
When I first moved into this house, the previous owners were heavy smokers and it really showed in the return air ducting to the furnace. There was an intricate structure of dust/cat hair/tar from the ciggies/and cooking grease in the returns. Was nasty.
To make a long story longer, the furnace was tripping on high limit on the move in day in October. I had a quick look and found the discharge air temperature high and started investigating what would be blocking air flow. Cleaned the returns and opened all the balancing dampers helped but still needed to move more air.
Ended up pulling the fan assembly and the curved blades of the fan were flat with the buildup of what was described above.
It took many wash and rinse cycles with a commercial hvac cleaner to get that blower wheel and the fan housing cleaned out.
When I restarted the furnace, my then wife was upstairs when the hurricane force winds started to blow all the crap out of the supply air ductwork to the registers. You actually had difficulty seeing across the living room of this 1200 square foot bungalow. I can still remember the screaming.... Hahaha.
As it turns out a furnace guy had decided that the fix for the low airflow was to put on a variable diameter drive pully and speed up the fan to move more air. Motor was over amping after the cleaning and I had to back it down and matched the speed to temperature rise for the furnace.
I did a big reno a few years later and had all the ductwork changed out. That nasty brown stuff would be impossible to remove from a heavy smokers home.