Residential air ducts work as a part of the HVAC system to circulate air throughout all of the rooms in the house. With all of the air flow, dust and particulate buildup is common inside most air ducts. Many people wonder if you need to clean air ducts regularly and about the best way to go about cleaning them. There is a bit of debate on the subject, with the EPA suggesting that air ducts only be cleaned as needed in response to mold, vermin, or excessive dust being visibly ejected into the air.  The EPA bases their recommendation based on scientific studies that found no evidence linking air duct cleaning to the prevention of health problems. In fact, their study showed that dirty air ducts do not even lead to increased particle levels in the air of most homes.  You can find their complete set of guidelines for air ducts cleaning here.

On the other side of the issue is the National Air Duct Cleaners Association (NADCA), who recommend that homeowners have their ducts cleaned regularly at least once every 3-5 years.  The NADCA claims that maintaining clean ducts can improve air quality, as well as increase the energy efficiency of your HVAC system.  You can find their recommendations as well as some FAQs about duct cleaning on their site.  Be sure to take everything available on their page with a grain of salt, as they will inevitably have a biased viewpoint.  For instance, although they claim that duct cleaning can decrease your home’s energy consumption, studies on the subject indicate that it is specifically the cleaning of the cooling coils, fans, and heat exchangers in your HVAC system that leads to increases in energy efficiency.  There is little evidence to suggest that cleaning the actual ducts will have any impact on energy use.

However, many people have found that duct cleaning helps with interior air quality, citing significant improvements in allergy symptoms.  If you have noticed recent health symptoms that you think may be related to poor air quality then you may want to consider having your air ducts cleaned.  Once you have made the decision you will want to be very careful finding the right professional for the job as many air duct cleaning services are notoriously sketchy and unreliable.  To make finding a quality local service company easy you should try using TalkLocal.  All you need to do is enter your name, contact info, and a description of your problem and you will be automatically connected to someone who can help in minutes.

This entry was updated on Monday, June 15th, 2015 at 11:55 am. This entry was originally posted on Wednesday, October 17th, 2012 at 4:00 pm and is filed under Heating and Cooling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.