Do You Need Your Ducts Cleaned?

Getting the ducts cleaned isn’t exactly at the top of most people’s priority list, though most already know of the risks of breathing poor quality indoor air. To know if you need them cleaned there are several considerations to take into account.

To start, what is it like to breathe deeply and fully in any given room in your house? If you find any part of breathing to be difficult it's not good, but even if not you may just be accustomed to your air. To know better, if you notice the difference between breathing outdoors versus indoors then it’s time to address your indoor air concerns. Typically the indoor air feels a lot less fresh than outdoor air. Having your ducts cleaned will improve the smell of you homes' air, and make it easier on those with allergies or other breathing problems. Though there is no hard evidence either way about the benefits of duct cleaning, this pertains to the nature of the business itself, if you think about it. With busy schedules from those who demand clean air there is no incentive for duct cleaners to fund such a study, nor is there for any other organization.

Also, are there dogs or cats in your house? Animals shed skin at a rate roughly double that of humans, and they shed a lot of hair too. There are a lot of potential allergens coming of Fido, and it’s getting into your air supply. Animal dander is one of the most common human allergens, and if it's in your ducts it's circulating through your home. And then there's the smell; unless you bathe them very often you know what that is like. No matter how much you love them (and their smell) are you sure you want your house to smell like that? Perhaps. But any company you have doesn’t.

How many people live in your home? Like pets, we shed skin and hair too, and the more people the more of that there is. Skin cells are the number one constituent of household dust, and the more people there are in the house, the more skin in the ducts there will be. But also, people have the habit of dropping things down the ducts as well, be it garbage, grit from their shoes, or the odd wrapper or piece of food. It’s just straight math – the people (and pets) the more stuff in the ducts.

How dry is your basement? We've received many enquiries from people who pull back the carpet to discover mould slowly colonizing their floors. If it's not too bad walls and floors can be comfortably handled by even moderately skilled handymen, but special equipment and skill are needed to cleanse the ducts. We recommend duct cleaning as a precautionary method regardless, as the dangers of inhaling the mould spores are well known and quite substantial.

Other things you should think about are whether you cold air return vents are on the floor (dirtier) or wall (cleaner), if you've had renovations since your last duct cleaning, if there are smokers in your home, and more.

What it comes down is living in a clean house. For most folks, the idea that there could be pockets of their house that are not clean is unacceptable, and for that reason they get their ducts cleaned. The frequency of cleaning will be greatly influenced by the considerations mentioned above, but sooner or later all homes need duct cleaning.

So the final reply to the question “Do I need to have my ducts cleaned?” is yes. How often you get it done is up to you.