3 Reasons Your Ducts Might Need Cleaning
by Katrina Evans
With winter just around the corner, it time to start thinking about scheduling your annual furnace check-up. Here are three reasons you may also want to consider having your heating ducts cleaned as well.
Air Quality
While there are no specific scientific studies stating that having your ducts cleaned will improve air quality in the home, it's just common sense that removing excess dust, dirt, and dander from circulation certainly can't hurt.
Every time the furnace kicks on, the warm air blowing throughout your heating ducts is re-circulating the dust. If anyone in your home has a compromised immune system, a respiratory disease, such as asthma or emphysema, or suffers from allergies, you know you want to keep fine particulate matter – inhalable pollution – to a minimum. If you are seeing increased concentrations of dust collecting in the corners around your heating registers, it is definitely time for a thorough duct cleaning.
Visible signs of mold in or on your duct work or a moldy smell in the air when the furnace is blowing is another reason to have your ducts cleaned. The underlying reasons will need to be investigated and solved first, and then after the cleaning, chemical treatments can be used to prevent their return.
Energy Savings
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, heating accounts for the biggest portion of utility bills, a whopping 45%. When your heating, ventilation and air conditioning system isn't clean, it makes the system have to work that much harder and turn on more frequently, even with filters. Excess dirt can also lead to parts breaking down faster.
Critter Cleanup
Mice often use a home's heating and cooling ducts as their own personal rodent super highway. It make it's easy for them to scurry from place to place, taking them everywhere they want to go in your home, without having to worry about getting caught. They carry pilfered food from the kitchen or the dog's dish back into these vents. They leave behind their droppings. They occasionally build nests in strategic places. And they sometimes even die in there, making quite the stink! They leave hairs behind. And all of this ends up getting blown around your house. Your HVAC duct cleaner professional can work with the exterminator to clean up the mess they leave behind and prevent them from coming back.
It is only logical that, like everything else, ducts are going to get dirty eventually. Older homes, in particular, may have decades of accumulated dirt and grime that is re-circulating into your home. Make duct cleaning a part of your annual furnace exam this fall.
For professional heating services, contact a company such as Oehlert Bros Inc.
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