Home HVAC Duct Cleaning. Do You Do It??

[Turk]

Our home was built in 1996 & has never had the duct work cleaned. No pets. My Wife has terrible allergies to dust, etc., gets shots weekly, doubles/triples on allergy medications & takes nose sprays. Still real bad!

We have a powerful Dyson + I use a 1000 or 1300 rated 3M Air Filter & I change out every 2 months.

Had a great place bring in a Rotobrush and he got lots of "stuff" out.

Plus he sterilized the ducts with an atomizer.

So, do you guys have your HVAC duct work cleaned?? If so, how often?

Has it helped?

 

[gman2304]

My house was built in 1970 and the ducts have never been cleaned. I had a Trane clean effects filtering system installed in our HVAC system about 8 years ago. It has helped with dust and I haven't bought any HVAC filters since. It claims to help with allergies but IDK, since we're not allergy sufferers. Sorry to hear your wife is suffering from such a bad allergy condition. I hope you can find an answer.

 

[marshall25]

I hang duct for a living, and in my opinion, duct cleaning is scam. In your typical hvac system the return duct is where the dirt is, and the supply duct stays clean because all the air goes through filters. So, as far as I'm concerned, the dirt in the return duct isn't hurting anything because of the filters. I've demoed ductwork that has been in use for years, and so long as the filters have been kept up, the supply duct is as clean as the day it's installed.

 

[Clevy]

Originally Posted By: marshall25
I hang duct for a living, and in my opinion, duct cleaning is scam. In your typical hvac system the return duct is where the dirt is, and the supply duct stays clean because all the air goes through filters. So, as far as I'm concerned, the dirt in the return duct isn't hurting anything because of the filters. I've demoed ductwork that has been in use for years, and so long as the filters have been kept up, the supply duct is as clean as the day it's installed.



Very good points. I'm a journeyman carpenter and am self employed doing large multi-unit residential complexes.
And your right. As long as the filters are routinely changed there should be minimal dust in the ducts.
Older homes that may have had questionable upkeep may benefit however a thorough inspection would have to be completed prior to making that decision.

 

[HTSS_TR]

Never have duct work cleaned since we moved in 17 years ago. We don't have air conditioning, just a furnace and it only run about 20-30 hours a year on average, the coldest winter in So Cal about 10 years ago we had it on for about 50-60 hours in 3 winter months, last winter we had it on less than 4-5 hours.

 

[Turk]

Our returns were quite dirty, the cheap $0.99 filters were used from 1996 to 2010 & not changed much.

I got here in 2010 & immediately went to the 3M 1000 rated one.

After the cleaning, I installed a "MicroPower Guard" filter which is a Polarized Media Air Cleaner. Gets 97% of the particles down to 0.3 Micron. This brings it from a MERV 8 to a MERV 12.

Fast Forward to the last couple days: My Wife's extreme Allergies have subsided!!

She is also now taking 50% less Allergy Pills as well!

 

[gman2304]

TURK, good to know she's doing better. They're might be something to the duct cleaning thing after all.

 

[DBMaster]

And, with flex duct you are just risking tears and leaks. I have always believed duct cleaning was just a way to "clean" you of some money.

 

[zzyzzx]

I only clean out what I can get with a shop vac in the return lines. When I did clean mine out they were over 50 years old, and yes they were very dirty! The supply lines were not dirty at all.

 

[Turk]

Originally Posted By: DBMaster
And, with flex duct you are just risking tears and leaks. I have always believed duct cleaning was just a way to "clean" you of some money.


We have no flex duct work........ It's rigid.

 

[stockrex]

ONLY use the ones that has a vacuum and rotating bush head, some have steam also,
rest are fake, ask them if they will CUT your duct work.
I got taken for a ride with a cheapo version of the duct cleaning,
clogged by new furnace, had to call the furnace guys back and clean .aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.

 

[MrHorspwer]

I had it done before we moved into the new house. There was a lot of construction debris in the returns and some in the supply as well. I probably could have gotten most of the junk from the supply lines with a shop vac though.

What really solidified my choice was pieces of what I can only describe as weave hair in many of the supply lines. Gross.

 

[zzyzzx]

Originally Posted By: MrHorspwer
What really solidified my choice was pieces of what I can only describe as weave hair in many of the supply lines. Gross.


What I gout out I would describe as "dust tumbleweed".

 

[nickaluch]

Be careful with a merv 12 filter.Way to restrictive for a furnace or a AC unit.Your heating or AC system is not made to clean the air in your house.I would go with a filter system that is designed for that need.You can possibly ruin your system with those merv 12 filters.The filter in your heating or AC is only for protection of the equipment from dust.

 

[EA82]

Cleaning anything other than metal ducts is a rip off, if you have flex ducts or duct board trunk line I recommend replacing if it's in bad shape. Also filtering at the return grill instead of filtering at the unit will help keep the return duct/ducts clean ( if you have filter back grills ).