Duct Cleaning in Washington, MO
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Seven months of heating pushes a lot of air through your ducts
Your furnace runs October through April here, seven months a year. Every hour it runs, air moves through the ducts, and whatever is riding in that air settles along the way. Dust and pet hair build up on the inside of the duct walls, and over a winter that runs this long, it adds up.
Franklin County has also seen 72 damaging wind events and 9 winter storms over the past ten years. A furnace that gets shut down and restarted during outages like that is pulling air through the same ducts each time, and the buildup inside them does not go away on its own. A system pushing air through coated ducts works harder to move the same amount of heat through the house.
- 7 months
- October through April, your furnace pushes air through your ducts
- 5 months
- May through September, your air conditioner does the same
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
- How often should air ducts be cleaned?
- There is no fixed schedule that fits every home, and a contractor can tell you more once they have looked at your system. If anyone in the house has allergies, or you have had renovation work that left dust behind, it is worth having them checked sooner rather than later. Homes with pets tend to need it more often too.
- Is air duct cleaning worth it?
- It depends on what is going on in your ducts right now. If you can see dust building up at the vents, or an inspection found debris in the system, cleaning them makes sense. If nobody in the house has allergy or breathing problems and the ducts look fine, it is not something you need just to have it done.
- What does air duct cleaning involve?
- A contractor connects a vacuum system to the ductwork and uses brushes or air tools to knock loose dust and debris, then pulls it out through the vacuum. Each supply and return vent gets cleaned, along with the main trunk lines. The furnace or air handler itself usually gets a look too, since dust builds up around the blower and coil.