Is air duct cleaning worth it? An honest answer
Sometimes it is not. Here is how to tell, and why we inspect with a camera before quoting.
Duct cleaning has a reputation problem because of the coupon companies offering it for a shockingly low price and then upselling on site. The honest answer is that duct cleaning is genuinely worth it for some homes and not worth it for others, and the difference is visible with a camera.
Worth it: a house you just bought with no cleaning history, a home after a remodel or new construction, a home with a smoker or heavy pet population, a home where someone has asthma or allergies and the filter alone is not enough, ducts that show visible dust at the registers or a dirty ring on the ceiling, a home after a wildfire-smoke summer with windows open.
Not worth it: a newer home with sealed metal ducts and a good filter that has been changed regularly. If we scope your ducts and they are clean, we tell you and you do not pay for a cleaning.
What real duct cleaning includes
Negative-air containment on the trunk line, every branch agitated back to the vacuum, trunk lines and the return plenum cleaned, and the furnace blower and coil cleaned. Any duct cleaning that does not include the blower is incomplete; the blower wheel is where the dust lives and it re-coats clean ducts within weeks.
Seattle-specific
Puget Sound homes run the furnace eight months a year, pull in alder and cottonwood pollen every spring, and got a lot of wildfire smoke in recent summers. The ductwork in a 1960s rambler has been circulating all of it for sixty years.
Need it handled?
Negative-air duct cleaning of the whole system, trunk lines included, with the furnace blower and coil cleaned too. Air Duct Cleaning · (206) 434-0779
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Ready for air duct cleaning?
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