GET YOUR HEATING DUCTS CLEANED FOR ONLY $9.95 !
The above ad is a bit of a stretch, but not by much, and it relates to a subject I have been meaning to talk about for quite some time. I received a phone call from a recording saying I could get all the HVAC ducts in my house cleaned for only $59.95, I believe the amount was. I’ve been a small businessman for most of my adult life and I can tell you for a fact you simply can not send even one person out to a customers home, in a company vehicle, with company equipment and tools, with liability, auto, and all other required insurances, and pay that person even minimum wage with all the accompanying expenses , and then include advertising and an office staff, and know that worker will be in the home for the several hours it will take to do a quality job and only charge less than $60. It can not be done.
So the first thing you must consider if/when you get one of these calls or see one of the ads is that the final tally will most likely be much higher than the come-on price.
MORE TO IT THAN MEETS THE EYE
When discussing heating and A/C duct cleaning in our country we have to divide the U.S. into two basic areas. The housing in the eastern part of the U.S. is, of course, older and the HVAC systems were installed earlier and are of a different type and style from what we find in the west. In eastern housing you’ll find a lot of oil and coal fired central forced air systems, while out west we have mostly natural or propane gas fired furnaces. So, I’m not certain if age or fuel type is the determining factor but in the east you’ll find a whole lot more homes with all metal ducts. Big uninsulated ducts that run along the basement ceiling (basements being something else we don’t see in the west). Fuel oil and coal are relatively dirty fuels and the systems tend to be much older than ours so they do, in fact, get dust and particulate build-up on the inside of the metal ductwork. So, it is a wise thing to have this build-up removed every so often by a reputable company. From what I understand a homeowner can expect to pay around $300-$500 or more for the task, as it takes about half a day for two people.
DUCTS IN THE WEST
So much for ducts back east. Homes in the western part of the United States were, of course, built much later. A large number of them during the boom that started just after WW II and continued until a couple of years ago. Some of our homes built earlier have metal ducts but we really don’t see too many of them, and when we do they are being converted to the modern “flex duct”. Flex duct is what you will find in most homes built within the last 50 years. Flex-duct consists of a plastic inner liner tube with a thick fiberglass insulation layer over that. Embedded in that layer of fiberglass is a metal spiral, kind of like a slinky, and then another plastic sleeve over that. So you have a duct that is let’s say 12” across but the hole the air travels thru is only 8” and the rest is insulation (a cross section would look like a donut made of fiberglass with plastic glazing). The thing about flex-duct is it comes in 25’ long sections and, as its name implies, is flexible. So there is no need to cut it to turn a corner like a metal duct. And since the inside is slick nothing sticks to it. The salesman for the duct cleaning company will make a show of bringing you over to one of your floor registers (he’ll try for one in the kids’ bedroom) and he’ll remove the register and show you the horrible pile of debris at the bottom of the duct just below the register. There will be a lot of dust and dirt and some small toys, a few plastic army men, several rubber bands, half an apple core and a petrified lizard (I don’t know how they get in but there always seems to be at least one in every duct system, they must put them in at the factory and they survive by eating plastic army men). And he will lead you to believe that the whole system is just teaming with this kind of toxic waste. Not so. Every house has a bit of trash right below the grill (register) but that’s usually the only place in the system you’ll find any dirt or debris. You can easily take your vacuum and, after removing the register, stick the wand down there and suck up all the petrified lizards etc and put the grill back on and save a ton of money. If your grills are in the ceiling you’re not going to have any debris stuck in there, for obvious reasons.
So, I repeat, before you give someone a bunch of money for a “duct cleaning” look at your ducts. If your registers are in the floor you’ll have to look under the house, if in the ceiling you’ll have to look in the attic. If you can see bare fiberglass or bare metal you may have the old metal ducts in which case you may want to think about upgrading to flex-ducts or at least having them sealed and heavily insulated. Air actually flows better through the old metal ducts; it’s the poor insulation and typically high leakage that makes them inefficient. But if you can see the outside of the ducts are covered in plastic and are spongy or you can see that they turn or bend without a metal fitting, you have flex ducts and you can clean them with a regular vacuum and do not need to pay some company several hundred dollars for the privilege of collecting your petrified lizards.
The above ad is a bit of a stretch, but not by much, and it relates to a subject I have been meaning to talk about for quite some time. I received a phone call from a recording saying I could get all the HVAC ducts in my house cleaned for only $59.95, I believe the amount was. I’ve been a small businessman for most of my adult life and I can tell you for a fact you simply can not send even one person out to a customers home, in a company vehicle, with company equipment and tools, with liability, auto, and all other required insurances, and pay that person even minimum wage with all the accompanying expenses , and then include advertising and an office staff, and know that worker will be in the home for the several hours it will take to do a quality job and only charge less than $60. It can not be done.
So the first thing you must consider if/when you get one of these calls or see one of the ads is that the final tally will most likely be much higher than the come-on price.
MORE TO IT THAN MEETS THE EYE
When discussing heating and A/C duct cleaning in our country we have to divide the U.S. into two basic areas. The housing in the eastern part of the U.S. is, of course, older and the HVAC systems were installed earlier and are of a different type and style from what we find in the west. In eastern housing you’ll find a lot of oil and coal fired central forced air systems, while out west we have mostly natural or propane gas fired furnaces. So, I’m not certain if age or fuel type is the determining factor but in the east you’ll find a whole lot more homes with all metal ducts. Big uninsulated ducts that run along the basement ceiling (basements being something else we don’t see in the west). Fuel oil and coal are relatively dirty fuels and the systems tend to be much older than ours so they do, in fact, get dust and particulate build-up on the inside of the metal ductwork. So, it is a wise thing to have this build-up removed every so often by a reputable company. From what I understand a homeowner can expect to pay around $300-$500 or more for the task, as it takes about half a day for two people.
DUCTS IN THE WEST
So much for ducts back east. Homes in the western part of the United States were, of course, built much later. A large number of them during the boom that started just after WW II and continued until a couple of years ago. Some of our homes built earlier have metal ducts but we really don’t see too many of them, and when we do they are being converted to the modern “flex duct”. Flex duct is what you will find in most homes built within the last 50 years. Flex-duct consists of a plastic inner liner tube with a thick fiberglass insulation layer over that. Embedded in that layer of fiberglass is a metal spiral, kind of like a slinky, and then another plastic sleeve over that. So you have a duct that is let’s say 12” across but the hole the air travels thru is only 8” and the rest is insulation (a cross section would look like a donut made of fiberglass with plastic glazing). The thing about flex-duct is it comes in 25’ long sections and, as its name implies, is flexible. So there is no need to cut it to turn a corner like a metal duct. And since the inside is slick nothing sticks to it. The salesman for the duct cleaning company will make a show of bringing you over to one of your floor registers (he’ll try for one in the kids’ bedroom) and he’ll remove the register and show you the horrible pile of debris at the bottom of the duct just below the register. There will be a lot of dust and dirt and some small toys, a few plastic army men, several rubber bands, half an apple core and a petrified lizard (I don’t know how they get in but there always seems to be at least one in every duct system, they must put them in at the factory and they survive by eating plastic army men). And he will lead you to believe that the whole system is just teaming with this kind of toxic waste. Not so. Every house has a bit of trash right below the grill (register) but that’s usually the only place in the system you’ll find any dirt or debris. You can easily take your vacuum and, after removing the register, stick the wand down there and suck up all the petrified lizards etc and put the grill back on and save a ton of money. If your grills are in the ceiling you’re not going to have any debris stuck in there, for obvious reasons.
So, I repeat, before you give someone a bunch of money for a “duct cleaning” look at your ducts. If your registers are in the floor you’ll have to look under the house, if in the ceiling you’ll have to look in the attic. If you can see bare fiberglass or bare metal you may have the old metal ducts in which case you may want to think about upgrading to flex-ducts or at least having them sealed and heavily insulated. Air actually flows better through the old metal ducts; it’s the poor insulation and typically high leakage that makes them inefficient. But if you can see the outside of the ducts are covered in plastic and are spongy or you can see that they turn or bend without a metal fitting, you have flex ducts and you can clean them with a regular vacuum and do not need to pay some company several hundred dollars for the privilege of collecting your petrified lizards.
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