What to Expect When Your Air Ducts Are Cleaned

So you’ve decided to proceed with a home air duct cleaning, and have found an air duct contractor you are comfortable with. 

What happens next? 

1.  The professional air duct cleaning employees will come into the house and remove registers and covers over all the places where the duct work attaches to a room.  This act gives them access to all parts of the vent system. 
2.  The employees will inspect the ducts to see how dirty they are, what debris is there and whether asbestos materials are present.  If asbestos materials are present, special procedures prescribed by the federal government will have to be followed.  Also, among the best air duct cleaning practices is the practice of telling you of any problems that need to be resolved before the air duct cleaning can proceed.  For example, if there is evidence that the ducts have an infestation of either insects or rodents, you will need to deal with the infestation before the company can continue with the cleaning.  If you don’t, as soon as the vents are clean, the animals will begin to roam the system again, making it as dirty as before.  There are many different tools for inspection; one of the most interesting to watch is a remote control camera that crawls through the vents transmitting back pictures.
3. The company will take measures to protect your furniture and your carpet as the cleaning proceeds. 
4.  At some point by now, the service will have attached a high-powered vacuum cleaner to one of the ducts, creating a suction flow of air out of your house into the vacuum.  The vacuum cleaner may be mounted on a truck, or it may be a portable unit. 
5. The specialists will use rotating brushes with soft bristles to protect ducts made out of fiber glass along with a hand vacuum to clean dust and debris out of the air ducts.  A thorough company will also clean the coils and other components of your HVAC unit, which should include a condenser unit cleaning. 
6. The air duct company should allow you to inspect the ducts once the cleaning is finished, even if that means using their tools to view hard-to-see areas.  The cleaning is successful if you cannot see any dirt when you inspect. 
7.  Finally, the service representatives should replace the access covers and registers they removed at the beginning, leaving your house looking the same way it was when they arrived – but with cleaner air.