Is Cleaning Air Ducts Worth It?

Where air ducts for houses are installed will depend on the construction of your home and the HVAC system installed in your home. 

What does an air duct do?       

Air ducts are a major component to your homes HVAC system (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning). The air ducts are the conduits that the HVAC system delivers or removes cooled or heated air in the different rooms. What it delivers in a room to cool or heat it, it takes it back to the HVAC system so that it can be cooled or heated again and sent back through the air ducts. 

Air Ducts can be made from any of these materials: 

• Galvanized Steel: the most used material for air ducts because of the zinc coating that prevents rust or the need to paint them. They are usually lined or wrapped in a fiberglass blanket for insulation purposes.
• Aluminum: a lightweight option that makes installing easy. 
• Fiberglass Ducts: this sheet metal type of air ducts comes with internal and external linings and is used primarily in commercial structures as they have the ability to muffle the HVAC noise. 
• Flexible Ducting: this tube-shaped air duct system is made from wire coil and then covered with a flexible plastic and wrapped in insulation. Popular choice when installing air cuts in hard-to-fit areas. 

Can dirty air ducts make you sick?

For years, many people have made the correlation between air ducts and allergies, colds, and respiratory issues. Today, we have technology that has brought this topic up with more substantial proof than in the years past. We should all be able to feel and live healthy in our own homes, so the endeavor to make our indoor air clean and safe has come to realize that regular air duct cleaning does make a different. 

How do I know if my air ducts need cleaning?

There are three prominent indications that your homes air cuts are need of a professional cleaning: 

• Mildew and mold growing inside the air ducts.
• The infestation of insects and small pests nesting inside the air ducts.
• Debris, dirt, and dust clogging the air ducts.

When your air ducts are dirty, the air that come through them is dirty and a poor quality, making your home’s environment poor and unhealthy. By keeping the  air ducts in your home clean, you will notice a drop in illness while everyone is breathing better and easier.  This is especially so for patients with pulmonary health conditions like asthma and COPD.  

Homes with dirty air ducts have more allergy symptoms, colds, coughs, and sore throats than homes that haves their air ducts routinely cleaned. With dirty air ducts, the air quality is lower, and allergens are circulated over and over throughout the home. 

Additionally, breathing the air from dirty air ducts can speed the aging process, make you feel tired constantly. With the air ducts blowing over the insect and rodent nesting, everyone in your home is breathing the bacteria and germs that blows over it all. 

Dirty air ducts can give your home an unpleasant odor from the built up mildew and mold inside the air ducts. While you may become accustomed to it living there, your guests are noticing it right away. 

Dirty air ducts are cutting down the efficiency of your HVAC system too. With all that dirt, debris, dust, and other nasty stuff, the air isn’t blowing through as it should, you’re adjusting the thermostat more, and that is making your energy bill increase.