Air Duct Cleaning Advice

Marc  Grumsfield of Portland, Oregon, told us that he was highly skeptical about getting his air ducts cleaned until he spoke to a close friend who told home that getting the service done greatly improved his wife’s allergies.  “I thought to myself, if the whole house needs to be dusted from time to time, then why not the air vents,” Marc says.

The only problem was finding a reputable air duct cleaning company to do the job.  He ended up going to the Better Business Bureau and finding a company that had been in business for five years and was very satisfied with the end results.  Immediately, he noticed a difference in the air quality.  Not that it was terrible before but he had not idea how much debris had built up in the vents over the course of the six years he had owned his home. His wife, who suffers from bad spring and summer allergies, received the biggest reward as she reported half the problems as before.  Both noticed how the whole HVAC system in the house worked better, heating and cooling the home in a more efficient manner.

” Not only did we use our heater less in the winter,” Marc stated. ” But we used our AC less in the middle of the summer because the airflow coming inside the house was more.”

There have been numerous such stories as these, and though many people personally find the cost of getting their air ducts cleaned to be highly rewarding, there is no official scientific evidence that shows getting this service done on a regular basis improves a homes air quality, released by the EPA in 1997.  When asked, Laureen Burton, one of the senior scientists in the Indoor Environments Division of the EPA, stated the though the findings were released more than twelve years ago nothing has changed the government agency still stands behind what it origally stated.

“Monitoring and changing out filters, [getting] regular home inspections and making sure that condensation does not get [inside] are more important,” she states.

Despite the EPA’s hardliner stance on the matter they along with the National Air Duct Cleaners Association both are in agreement that there is much value in getting your air ducts cleaned. 

What they disagree on, for the most part, is how regular you should get it done.  Not surprisingly the association representing most of the country’s longtime air duct cleaning companies says it should be a lot more often than the EPA does.  The government’s current stance is that you only really need the service done if you have excessive debris, have pets that shed a lot or if you have a mold problem.

What Is The Normal Price Range For This Service?

The average price paid for an air duct cleaning company to come in and do a thorough job on Angie’s List was $460.  Homeowners need to be leery of companies making elaborate claims about the health benefits you get from cleaning your ducts. As stated, such exaggerated claims are unsubstantiated by the EPA and NADCA.  Also note that there are a lot of outfits that have extremely cheap rates but are known as “blow-and-go” companies. These are the air duct cleaning businesses that routinely advertise in the Val Pac, Craigslist or bulk mailers.  They advertise their services for $99, sometimes less.  Sure, they charge low fees for their services but they also perform a poor job of thoroughly cleaning your HVAC system.  If you cannot afford to spend at least $400 or more for the service its best to wait until you can.  For it to be truly worth it you need to have them cleaned properly.

Overall if you know it has been years since you had the service done and you can afford it, it would not be bad thing to do it.  You might find that everyone in the house breaths better afterwards.  Will it kill you if you do not get your air ducts professionally cleaned?  No.  But, doing so will make every one’s life a lot more pleasant.