Why duct cleaning is a waste of money.

Occasionally we’ll get calls or e-mails from people wanting to know if we clean ducts. We’ve also seen plenty of ads for companies that do duct cleaning, claiming to rid the home of allergens and musty smells and mold. Some people swear by it, but…

we don’t.

We don’t clean ducts, nor do we think it’s particularly effective. Here’s why: cleaning ducts does not get at the root of the problem. Yes, it’s possible you have dirt and mold in your ducts – but how did those offensive particles get in your ducts in the first place? Through leaks! You can clean, clean, clean all you want but if you have leaks in the air ducts under your house THIS is why you have dirt and mold and musty smells blowing into your house – because the air is being drawn from your unconditioned, unsealed crawl space up into the living areas of your home.

Yuck.

So while we do not clean ducts, we absolutely test them for leaks and then seal them up. Once your HVAC ductwork is a closed system there’s nothing getting in to create the stinky, dusty, dirty, unhealthy mess. We test your ducts using our DUCTBLASTER, which measures the degree of leakiness in your system, then seal all the leaks thoroughly so the conditioned air stays inside and the unconditioned air stays outside.

Don’t believe me? Check out what the EPA has to say about duct cleaning and pay special attention to this section: How to prevent air duct contamination.

If you’re interested in having your ducts tested and sealed, give us a call at (919) 360-1570 or e-mail us. If you have Progress Energy we can get you the duct testing and sealing rebates, as well. In any case, having your ducts tested and sealed will actually pay for itself fairly quickly – the average home experiences 20-30% leakage in its HVAC ductwork. Sealing up that leakage will have a big impact on your energy bill.

Previous posts on air ducts:

• Are your ducts leaking?
• Progress Energy rebates
• Change your air filters every month!
• More on Progress Energy rebates
• Real world scenario: duct testing, sealing, and payoff

Tags: duct cleaning, duct sealing, duct testing, ductblaster

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 14th, 2010 at 9:32 am by Adrienne Bashista and is filed under all blog posts, ducts, saving energy/saving money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.