What do I need to know about Home Duct Cleaning?

[mthomas58]

We are looking to get our HVAC ducts cleaned. House built 1984 ish and I'm sure the ducts have never been cleaned. We've recently noticed that our allergy symptoms increase upon returning home from traveling.

What to I need to know? What do I need to look out for? What allergen removal options are available (fogging/ chemical sprays, etc). What are duct cleaning companies going to try to sell me that I don't need?

[Cajundaddy]

The first step: Open up a couple of vents and the return duct and take some video with your phone to see if you actually need it. Many do not. A lot of these guys are scammers, shove a borescope camera in there and show you canned video of a duct filled with fluff, dead rat, lunch trash etc. Then they say because of the condition the normal $250 job will be $450.

Several of my neighbors were getting duct cleaning service on 5 yr old properties and showing borescope shots that were clearly BS. The "company" was offering a 20% discount if these folks could get 5 neighbors to also get the service. Smells like a scam! No business license, no business address, phone # was from a different state etc. Big red flags.

I took some phone footage and my ducts were clean as a whistle. Caveat emptor.

[LWJ]

I was on the BOD of the State HVAC association for a couple decades. A very common scam is the $99 duct clean. Don't do this.

There are legit duct cleaners (darn if I have a method of figuring out who they are!) that exist. Can you ask your trusted HVAC contractor?

Also. HVAC has been gobbled up by Private Equity and prices have gone completely NUTS across the country. I don't have a solution other than to say be cautious.

[Skytrooper]

I had a duct cleaning performed on my almost 40 year old house prior to getting a new HVAC system. I got a good reputable company. When the technician was finished, he said “ Your ducts were very clean…you should be good to go for another 30+ years”. I thanked him for his assessment and recommendation, but told him “That will be up to the next owner…I will be long gone by then”.

[mgatepi]

We had ours cleaned a few years back. I watched the Tech FILL up 2 large trash bags with what came out of our ducts. They were nasty. My house is 120 years old and I am sure they have never been cleaned. I also had the ducts sealed. I watched the guy pressure check before and after, huge difference and an improvment we could actually feel. After cleaning and sealing the upstairs of our house actually would get warm and cool when the system ran!
Cost us about $3K for all but very much worth it for us.

[wdfifteen]

I had the ducts cleaned on my parent's house after I took ownership. My mom was a chain smoker. The ceilings were coated with greasy brown stuff, and I'm sure it was in the ducts too. The cleaner guy said he couldn't get the greasy brown stuff off the inside of the ducts. I had them cleaned anyway, and the house did smell a lot better.

[craigster59]

When we bought our home here in Arizona last year the previous owner had 2 dogs and 3 cats.

Everything was fine and dandy on the showings and initial walk throughs, candles burning and Glade plug-ins pumping. But after closing my Wife noticed a lingering pet odor.

Now, I'm "deaf in the nose" but she's got a sniffer that rivals our Chocolate Lab. First thing I did was check the HVAC filters and they were BAD! Didn't look like they had been changed in a few years.

Put in new filters and she still complained so I figured I'd check out a duct cleaning service. Found these guys and it worked, not sure if you can find someone similar in your area who "mops" the ducts. I now change filters every month, they recommend the cheap filters with the green mesh. Easier on the HVAC system and provides better flow.

[craigster59]

I think the biggest scam to watch out for are the postings on Nextdoor and Neighbor apps that say "Hey! We're have our ducts cleaned and the company says if we can get enough neighbors together they'll offer this amazing discount and they'll throw in dryer vent cleaning at NO Charge!".

These postings are usually placed by shady companies that over charge in the first place.

[911 Rod]

Originally Posted by craigster59

I think the biggest scam to watch out for are the postings on Nextdoor and Neighbor apps that say "Hey! We're have our ducts cleaned and the company says if we can get enough neighbors together they'll offer this amazing discount and they'll throw in dryer vent cleaning at NO Charge!".

These postings are usually placed by shady companies that over charge in the first place.

Or the AI responses on FB were everyone raves about how great the company is.

[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.

[billybek]

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.

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.

[mthomas58]

Well we decided to go ahead with the duct cleaning. Given the allergy issues we decided to giive it a try. Found a reputable reasonably priced local firm recommended a trusted realtor/neighbor. Stay away from the big guys like Zeroex. Their price was exponential.

They put a rotary brush down each vent with vacuum suction to pull loosened material followed by a chemical treatment to kill mold. We were happy with the service and the techs that did the work and we were surprised how much dust and debris was captued in the filter after the cleaning. This filter was brand new before the cleaning.