Can Regular HVAC Maintenance Replace Professional Duct Cleaning?

Having a healthy and comfortable indoor environment is essential for any home or business. To achieve this, it is important to maintain and clean your air conditioning system, including the cleaning of air ducts. In this blog post, we will discuss why it is important to keep your air ducts clean, and provide you with practical steps to ensure cleaner, healthier air in your home or business. Air ducts don't need to be cleaned as often as air conditioning maintenance, usually once every few years. You may also want to clean the ducts after major renovations that create a lot of dust.

Keeping your HVAC system running at peak efficiency by reducing all possible airflow restrictions. When deciding whether you can clean an air duct or whether you will need to hire a local HVAC repair professional to repair or replace the ducts, there are several factors to consider. Sealants should never be used on the damp lining of ducts, to cover mold that is growing, or to cover dirt in ducts, and should only be applied after cleaning, in accordance with the NADCA or other appropriate guidelines or regulations. The question isn't how much it costs to clean air conditioning and air ducts, but how much it costs not to keep your AHU clean and maintained regularly. If you haven't kept up with the regular cleaning and maintenance of your HVAC system, these may just be signs that your air ducts and system need to be cleaned and reconditioned, not replaced. You may have seen an ad, received a coupon in the mail, or contacted a company directly that offers to clean your air ducts as a way to improve the quality of your home's indoor air. You can also contact professional duct cleaning service providers and ask them about the services they offer. When someone thinks about cleaning their HVAC system, including the air handling unit and air duct lines, they probably think about the cost.

Duct cleaning is not considered a necessary part of the annual maintenance of the heating and cooling system, which consists of the periodic cleaning of drain trays and heating and cooling coils, the periodic replacement of filters and the annual inspection of heating equipment. However, many modern residential air duct systems are constructed with fiberglass panels or sheet metal ducts lined inside with a fiberglass coating. While many of these products can be legally used inside unlined ducts if all instructions on the label are followed, some of the instructions on the label may not be appropriate for use in ducts. Before hiring an HVAC cleaning team to repair your ductwork, you must first determine if your system needs to be cleaned. If you clean your ducts and you don't have major problems such as mold and pests, you may be wasting money. Metal ducts are the norm in newly-built homes, so your ducts are likely to be suitable for good cleaning. That's why it's important to have air ducts cleaned by National Association of Air Duct Cleaners (NADCA) certified professionals.

While the EPA says it's enough to clean the ducts for mild episodes of mold, severe outgrowths often need to be replaced, especially if the ducts have rusted.

Michele Elbe
Michele Elbe

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