cleaning ducts at home

[ifieg]

What is the best way to clean dusty ducts.

[42yrs exp]

With a Duct Cleaner.

[reverunbilly]

personally, I always use a Henway.

[Wild Leg]

About three pounds.

[Steve Wiggins]

Dust in your ducts won't hurt anything. Not enough moisture there to grow mold. We live on a ball of dirt and there is nothing you can do about that except move to the ocean.

[cem-bsee]

read at EPA.gov about duct cleaning --

use vacuum & hose to get stuff dropped down in thru floor registers --

more important is to have the blower wheel cleaned. Next would be to dust out behind the filter, where stuf has bypassed the filter's edges. soap & water will do fine.

[heckler]

Well put, Wiggins. Duct cleaning is another one of those products that plays on people's fears.

Salesman: "Look at all this dust in your duct! Did you realize that your baby was breathing this?"

Customer: "I had no idea. When can you come by?"

The reason there is dust in your ductwork is because the air is unable to carry it out. The dust has settled in the thin, non-moving layer of air known as the boundary layer.

If dust is accumulating in your ductwork, then your ductwork is actually REMOVING it from the air - not contributing it. If the fan were capable of blowing dust out of the ductwork, it would never have been able to accumulate in the first place.

If cleaning ducts made the air cleaner and healthier, it would be mandatory in hospitals and health facilities. It's not. The whole business is a hoax propogated by honest, well-meaning people who don't understand some basice principles of airflow.

[heckler]

Just saw the post by CEM-BSEE. Couldn't agree more. The components of your system you need to worry about cleaning are the parts with no boundary layer. Like the blower, the coil, etc.

[millerman]

Mold and other matter grows in the crud that settles in the ductwork. Have you looked at your return lately? Supplies get dirty from kids ETC. dropping stuff down the register. Hospitals, colleges and other large commercial buildings can develop ugly stuff that makes people sick, legioneers (spelling)? Our parent company in Portland Oregon deals with large commercial jobs and they go through extensive training and certification in order to even bid these projects.
Mold remediation is a big issue nowadays, people get sick because of this stuff and we are finally understanding the causes. I would be careful in genralizing about what some people actually have knowledge about.

[heckler]

Sure. Mold remediation is a big deal. Building managers have become especially sensative to mold growth after the black mold scare. (I see mold! The mold is black! We have black mold! -- not realizing that "black mold" refers to a specific strain of mold and not to a color) But, is the recommended solution to vacuum out the ductwork? Or is it to make sure that the duct liner is mold resistant, radiate the coils with UV light to kill the mold, and other treatments.

The fact that your parent company requires extensive training and certification would seem to indicate that the solution is more involved than scrubbing the coil and running a vacuum nozzle down an air duct.

So, while I agree with you that mold remediation is a growing concern, I maintain my former assertion about these residential duct cleaning jokers. Even the EPA website says the jury is still out on getting your ducts clean! Their conclusion? We haven't been able to determine whether or not vacuuming ducts helps, but we HAVE been able to tell that it doesn't make things worse.

As for mold growing on crud -- Does mold grow on the crud on your driveway? Does mold grow on the crud on top of your fridge? If you don't wash a cruddy car in your barn, does it grow mold? No. Why not? Because mold grows where it's damp.

As Steve Wiggins indicated in his post (and as common sense will tell you) ducts are generally dry. Coils get wet. Water will sometimes blow from the coil onto the duct immediately downstream of the coil. Ever seen the pictures of mold in hvac systems? It's usually in the coil's drain pan, or just downstream of the coil. In extreme cases, there's standing water in the duct.

These types of situations require some degree of knowledge and training to fix (as your parent company will attest). I highly doubt that the solution would be to snake a vacuum hose down the duct.

Here's a test you can try. Call a duct cleaning company. Tell them, "I shined a flashlight in my ductwork and saw dust. Do you think I should get them cleaned?"

What do you think their answer will be?

[millerman]

I see ifieg has not responded after his post, maybe we lost him and didn't simply answer his question.
Doing it yourself you can remove the grills wash them and run a vacuum hose as far as it will go down the duct. I would be careful doing the return as it is probably insulated and extremely filthy.
We use a Roto-Brush system as well as a power vac truck to clean ducting and for fire side power vacs. If you feel you need to have your ducting cleaned call some one to do it. I would'nt worry about EPA this or government study that, if it's dirty and you want them cleaned, knock yourself out...

[tinknocker service tech]

why waist the money if the system is less then 20 years old the return may have a biuld up but the supply should not. wall cavities is where you should clean by takeing off the grilles and jus vacume as far as you can
it is just a market someone came up with to make money on and doesnt realy serve muck of a purpase

[cem-bsee]

L O T S of discussion in the indoor air quality forum on this subject!