It’s normal for ducts to accumulate some amount of well-adhered dust on their surfaces over their years of use. They may also accumulate some less well-adhered dust during periods of prolonged disuse. This dust will be blown out when the system is first used again, but your ducts should return to blowing out dust-free air relatively quickly. Neither of these situations would indicate your home could benefit from a duct cleaning. However there are some situations where a duct cleaning could improve air quality and/or system performance, such as:
- Mold growth is occurring in your ducts or air handler. Mold growth can be very detrimental to your air quality. Occasionally, it can contaminate your home’s air with toxins in addition to its more usual contributions of allergens and irritants.
- Pests are occupying your ducts. Detritus, such as fecal matter and dander, from vermin and insect habitation can cause air quality problems in your home.
- Your ducts are expelling air that contains dust. If this is not a temporary occurrence and your ducts are consistently emitting dust, you will want to have your ducts cleaned to remedy the situation.
- Despite taking other steps to improve the air quality in your home, residents are still experiencing problems associated with poor air quality. Poor air quality aggravates many health conditions, such as allergies and asthma. There are many parts of your ducts that cannot be easily accessed. A professional duct cleaning will include an inspection that can tell you if your ducts contain any problem areas that could be contributing.
- So much dust and debris has accumulated that it’s impeding airflow. This will make your air handler work harder. This is inefficient and causes excessive wear on components.
You can choose to have your ducts cleaned even if none of these situations exist, but it may not offer any benefits to your air quality or HVAC system. Be sure to hire a quality contractor because duct cleaning can damage components or worsen air quality if done wrong or incompletely.
For more information on duct cleaning, please contact us at Energy 1 Heating & Air Conditioning. We serve Lorain, Erie and Cuyahoga counties.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Lorain, Ohio about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about duct cleaning and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
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Energy 1 Heating & Air Conditioning
1 (440) 246-5440
Serving the Lorain, OH Area