My wife’s doctor suggested we clean out the heating ducts of our house in order to help her feel better.
Is this a good idea? Is it expensive? By the way, our house is from 1975 and I actually think it has been done before. In fact, I’m sure of it
How often should this be done? Any experiences with it?
Take a look in them.
I’d bet they are clean.
You can find articles about this on the internet. The bottom line is that there’s no real proof that this accomplishes anything in the ordinary home. We had it done when we first moved in, and I certainly didn’t notice anything different.
Still, you ought to be able to find a service that will do it for less than $100, so it’s a relatively small price to pay for domestic peace of mind.
The better bet for air cleaning is to change your furnace filter regularly, and consider running an air purifier in rooms that you use frequently (bedroom, den). A purifier that blows air through a filter, that is, and not an “ionic” purifier, which has been shown to be useless.
IIRC, it’s cost us on the order of 500 dollars. This is in a high-rent area (Washington DC suburb).
Not sure it accomplished much and it may not be the best use of your money. As Tom Tildrum suggests, other steps are easier and just as likely to help (if not more so).
When I was in high school I worked summers at an HVAC company and actually cleaned ducts a few times. There is virtually nothing you cannot do yourself.
I’d guess that your ducts are cleaner than you think. Not much chance for dust to build up in them when they’re blowing air all the time.
What we did was use a regular shop-vac with a long hose and vacuum about a foot into each vent. Then I’d spray an anti-fungal mist as far down as I could reach (not very far usually).
The biggest source of dust and shit was in the return (if there was no filter on the return). I’d vacuum that out and use the same anti-fungal stuff. We’d make sure the filters were changed and fit correctly. Then we’d get your $250 and go on our way.
We’d also make sure your inside coil was clean if you had AC, but as long as you have a filter you shouldn’t have to worry about that.
The EPA doesn’t recommend it: “Duct cleaning has never been shown to actually prevent health problems. Neither do studies conclusively demonstrate that particle (e.g., dust) levels in homes increase because of dirty air ducts. This is because much of the dirt in air ducts adheres to duct surfaces and does not necessarily enter the living space.”
I used to rent a house that had forced-air heat and persistent mold/mildew problems in a north-facing bathroom (that received minimal sunlight and had inadequate ventilation – hence, the mold and mildew). Over a period of years, I developed serious breathing and allergic problems from living there.
I got better after three things happened: 1) I cleaned the vents to the best of my limited ability; 2) I upgraded my vacuum cleaner to a HEPA-filtered one and got a large portable HEPA air filter; and 3) the landlord had the bathroom renovated, with the walls replaced (the old drywall was obscuring huge mold/fungus growths growing inside the walls, icky-ick-ick).
Re. the vent cleaning, I just took off the vent covers and reached in with my arm to wipe off the surfaces and scoop up huge clouds of what could be described as charcoal dust-colored foam. Kind of like cotton candy, but all sooty, with some ordinary dust and lint and ancient cat hair [we had no cats]. There was enough of this sooty crap to fill, along with the paper towels, several small grocery bags’ worth. :eek: The house’s heating system was a heating oil tank and burner in the basement, so fossil fuel was being combusted and soot generated. I also had a look-see in the main ductwork in the basement and saw nothing but some rather granular dust on the floor of the duct; certainly no clouds of soot or mold or mildew, so I let it be.
So yeah, clean your vents to the best of your ability, but don’t overlook other areas for improvement in air quality.
The Scrivener- that sooty cotton candy was likely more mold. It’s no wonder you were having an allergic reaction.
Everything I’ve ever heard (including when I worked for a company that did duct cleaning) is that it does little or no good in a household system. There’s just not enough power in a typical furnace to force dust particles through all the ducting.
As noted above, replacing your furnace filter regularly and maybe having an air purifier in busy rooms should be more than adequate for your typical house. You might also get the furnace itself serviced and cleaned every couple of years, but I wouldn’t mess with the ducts.
I will be a dissenting voice here, and say we did our house for around $200 and noticed a considerable improvement in air flow. Our house was built in 1955 and I don’t think it had ever had ducts cleaned before, and we have a shedding dog, the people before us had cats. We change our furnace filter about once a month because it gets so fuzzy from the fur. They got TONS of stuff out of there, seriously, it was crazy. It was easier to heat our farthest rooms after that. We don’t have allergies, so I can’t speak to air quality, but I figure it can’t have been great if the air flow itself was hindered.
It’s not super expensive, and most places will bargain, and they have specials / ads like crazy.
If you don’t have strong air flow through the ducts there can certainly be a good bit of dust and dirt down in the duct. My living room is pretty far from my furnace and doesn’t have strong air flow, just by taking the duct grille off and looking down inside I could see a gray layer of dust and stuff. You can get a lot of it by sticking a vacuum hose down into the duct. If there is dirt further down in there it should either blow out or stay put.
I also took the time to go into the basement and tape up several places where the ductwork didn’t seal well coming out of the furnace, that made a big difference in air flow.
Our duct work is close to 20 years old. We are considering doing this. One friend reported a drastic reduction in dust in her house. Since we have five cats, I’m sure we’ll reap SOME benefit from doing this. My house is inordinately dusty. I need to blame *something *other than my bad housekeeping practices!!
We’ve seen prices ranging from $150 to $375 for this service.
If your junk mail includes envelopes or magazines of coupons, you will likely find some duct-cleaning companies in there.
That simply doesn’t make any sense.
Where is the dust coming from? Ducts don’t generate dust.
Just make sure your filters are clean.
Dust and dirt falls into the ducts, especially if you have floor registers. And of course the filters don’t filter 100% of the dust.
The dust comes from a couple sources. On the supply side, no filter is 100% effective, and also I have found that most household filters have gaps around them that lets a fair amount of unfiltered air get by. On the return side there are usually no filters and all the crud and fur from the house builds up at the turns. Also your heater may have been run for quite awhile in the past with no filter by a clueless home owner.
Stuff in the duct usually stays put pretty well but it can grow mold. Mold spores are microscopic and can cause serious breathing issues for some folks.
Industrial duct cleaners use a two pronged approach. First, they run an air snake gizmo down the duct. This is a rubber air hose terminating in a bundle of smaller rubber hoses that looks for al the world like a nerf cat o nine tails. Compressed air blown through the hoses makes the tails thrash which knocks loose dust & crud. While they are doing that, a big industrial vacuum connected to the duct moves the air fast enough to keep the dust suspended until it can be extracted. In the unlikely event that they can’t get to an area with that rig they cut open the duct, clean it by hand, and then professionally patch the hole.
Finally if you have a real sensitive application they can fog the ducting with a chemical called Oxene which as I am told releases chlorine. The stuff is a gas that is 100% removed with no residue.
I used these guys for a commercial project and they sent out a good crew that did a kick ass job. I crawled through the ducting to inspect the job and it works as advertised. Don’t know about cost though, I wasn’t paying the bill.
If you have allergy or athsma problems and the cost doesn’t break your piggy bank I would recommend it.
So what?
If your ducts are “dusty” than they are trapping this source of dust. How is cleaning them going to decrease the amount of dust in the house - the duct are either trapping it or circulating it.
It’s snake oil!
The ducts aren’t supposed to be trapping and retaining dust, they are supposed to deliver air. Your furnace isn’t running all the time, especially in spring or fall. Dust falls down into the registers and collects, and dust attracts other dust and moisture. The dust then blows out when the furnace runs.
Also, the ducts aren’t some perfectly smooth system of tubes, they have joints and bends all over the place. I found the joints in my ducts don’t look that well done, but of course with all most of the duct work behind the walls it’s not likely to get fixed because I don’t want to tear up the walls.
Money spent on duct cleaning would be better spent on either electro-static air treatment or better, pleated media filtration in the air handler. MERV ratings are now in the mid-teens, with 1 micron average removals, though it would be wise to consult with an HVAC pro regarding the effect on airflows.
My ducting has pleated media filter. Recent temporary ductwork removal due to other work showed virtually spotless ducting after 15 years.
Granted but, if it wasn’t in the ducts
THAT DUST WOULD JUST BE IN THE HOUSE!
Get it?
Ducts don’t generate dust, so to say that cleaning them makes your house cleaner makes no sense at all.