The vents in our house have a fair amount of dust. There is also a little mold on the vent covers, which we are cleaning, but I don’t see any in the ducts. I can clean a little of the dust near the openings, but that might make a lot of it fall down, and then get kicked up when we turn the fan on. I don’t know if we can afford to get them professionally cleaned. Should I clean what I can, or just let it be and assume it’s reached an equilibrium?
I have my furnace ducts cleaned once a year. It costs $75 and is worth every penny. YMMV.
Let it be. I’d imagine it’s like cleaning the fins on a ceiling fan. If you don’t do it right, it’s just going to make a mess when you turn it on. Clean the dust/mold around the vent opening itself, but I woulnd’t go reaching in there with anything. (But you may want to make sure that it’s not full of mold). Also, I know of two people who had their vents professionaly cleaned and both said that it was a waste of money. In both cases the cleaner only pulled out a small handful of dust from the entire house.
Okay, so I guess it’s not always a waste of money, YMMV.