AIR DUCT CLEANING: WORTH THE COST OR FRIVOLOUS?
Keeping a clean home is one way to combat allergies and associated respiratory issues associated with dust, mites and other irritants. Using green cleaning products certainly supports an “air friendly” home, too. But there’s one area of your home that might not get any attention or thought and that’s the ductwork that delivers heated and cooled air.
It’s not been that long ago that ductwork cleaning came into fashion. Ducts, by design, are hidden and not always easy to get to. The theory behind ductwork cleaning is that dust and other air pollutants can become trapped in these hidden passageways, delivering invisible allergy and illness producing gunk to our noses and lungs. If cleaned properly, the bad stuff is taken out and illness and allergy issues are reduced.
Is that really true, though?
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), “duct cleaning has never been show to actually prevent health problems. Neither do studies conclusively demonstrate that particle (e.g., dust) levels in homes increase because of dirty air ducts.” The reason for this is simple. Dust and other dirt tends to cling to the surfaces of the ducts, thus they aren’t floating in the air, but stationary.
In fact, the EPA states that pollutants from the outdoors, cooking, cleaning (traditional chemical cleaning), smoking and just moving around can cause more exposure to contaminants than dirty air ducts.
Really!
The EPA recommends having your ducts cleaning by a reputable company if any of the following are true:
1. You have substantial visible mold growth on the surfaces of your ducts or on other components of the heating/cooling system. Since many areas of your ducts aren’t accessible for a visible inspection, be sure to ask the duct cleaning service to provide positive proof that a mold problem exists.
There are some naturally occurring substances that may look like mold but aren’t. It is worth having a laboratory determine if what you’re seeing is truly mold or not.
While mold can be removed during a thorough duct cleaning, the reason for the mold growth must be resolved or the mold issue will return.
2. You have mice, rats or insects infesting your ductwork.
Do we really need to say anything more about this?
3. You have excessively filthy ductwork that includes loose dust and debris, which is being pushed into the living areas through the registers. This can happen because of a number of factors:
A renovation that failed to cover supply registers and/or done when the heat/air conditioning was on. Dust and other debris can be sucked into the system and deposited into the ductwork.
Older homes can simply acquire dust and debris, especially if an older furnace was inefficient.
The home was not kept as clean in the living areas as it could have been, giving dust, pet hair and other things the opportunity to be pulled into the ducts.
You can learn more about duct cleaning and how to go about hiring a reputable contractor by downloading the EPA’s booklet “Should You Have the Air Ducts In Your Home Cleaned?” free from their site. This is in PDF format. If you simply want to read from their site, visit http://www.epa.gov/iaq/pubs/airduct.html.
About Better Life Maids
Better Life Maids is a green house cleaning service founded in St. Louis, MO. It has created a unique marketing partnership with Better Life a natural household cleaning products manufacturer. Together they are working to create the first national name brand in natural household cleaning products and green house cleaning services. Better Life Maids is expanding in select markets through a franchise development system. For more information visithttps://www.betterlifemaids.com or http://www.cleanhappens.com.