How clean is the air you breathe? Many people don’t realize just how polluted indoor air can be. They also fail to realize the benefits of cleaner air for their health and overall lifestyle. Breathing healthier air keeps your body operating at optimal performance levels. But how do you improve indoor air quality?
Getting your home’s ductwork cleaned is an easy and effective way to quickly improve the quality of air inside your home. Duct cleaning will benefit you and your family in several helpful ways.
1. Breathe Cleaner Indoor Air
Heated and cooled air making its way through your home’s ductwork will mix with any dirt, dust, and debris that it comes into contact with. Keeping each duct clean will, of course, minimize the chance of airborne cross-contamination. As a result, you’ll breathe cleaner indoor air.
2. Get Rid of Bad Smells
Tobacco smoke can embed itself into ductwork. The same goes for odors from cooking. The dirtier the duct, the easier it is for the smell to attach itself to it. The smells can coat the ductwork, causing the entire home to wreak of putrid odors. With duct cleaning, a professional will use special cleaning agents to completely remove any coating on the ductwork as well as any odors.
3. Decrease Exposure to Allergens
Whether you’re heating or cooling your home, the HVAC filter captures allergens and other types of contaminants to keep them from recirculating back into the air. As the filter gets dirty, it becomes less effective at capturing tiny particles. These particles can make their way into the ductwork, thus compromising your home’s indoor air quality. This is why it’s so important to clean or replace the air filter as needed.
In addition to changing the filter, getting the ductwork cleaned will serve as an extra layer of protection against the spread of pollen, dust mites, and other irritants. In homes where allergy or asthma sufferers reside, regular duct cleaning is particularly vital to the occupants’ health.
4. Enhance Energy Efficiency
If you keep your air ducts clean and fresh, your monthly energy costs will go down. Your air conditioner and heater work best in dust-free settings, which is why cleaning the ducts once a year is so important to their overall efficiency.
5. Minimize Moisture and Condensation
The development of condensation is never a good thing. With too much condensation come excess moisture levels. And with too much moisture comes the growth of mold and mildew. If the ductwork itself becomes damp, this can result in black mold spreading throughout your entire home.
There are several types of mold remediation services. You’ll need to obtain them if mold ever becomes present in your home. To keep this from happening, get your ductwork cleaned at least once a year to ensure it doesn’t get full of moisture.
6. Live in a Cleaner Home
Cleaner ductwork translates into a cleaner house. As air flows through clean ducts, it won’t have any dust or dirt to mix with, meaning you can keep your home dust-free for longer periods of time. Anytime you notice your home getting dustier in shorter time periods, make sure to contact a professional to inspect the ductwork. There’s a good chance it’s full of dust.
How Messy Is Duct Cleaning?
Duct cleaning is not a task to do yourself. It requires professional cleaning with professional equipment. If mold becomes present in the ductwork, extreme safety guards must be in place to remove the mold during the duct cleaning process.
What Happens If I Don’t Clean the Ductwork?
You’ll face a lot of consequences if you don’t get the ductwork cleaned on a regular basis. For starters, you’ll increase the risk of mold development. As mold spores spread throughout the dirty ductwork, they will harm your respiratory health.
Dirty ductwork also impairs the efficiency of your heating and cooling systems. The longer you go without cleaning it, the dustier it will become. Eventually, the ducts will clog, hindering airflow and reducing heating and cooling efficiency. The HVAC system will have to work harder to keep the room at the temperature you want, causing it to wear out faster than it should. This will result in costly repairs and increase energy usage. If completely ignored, all of the ductwork will eventually clog and keep the HVAC unit from cycling on.
Another thing that will happen if you don’t clean dirty ductwork is that it will become a haven for pests and rodents. Whether it gets full of cockroaches, mice, spiders, or all three, these pests will have full access to the entire house through the ductwork.
Should I Get Ductwork Cleaned Every Year?
Your home’s indoor and outdoor humidity levels impact how often to clean the ductwork. Duct cleaning is recommended once a year in high-pollen, high-moisture locations. The same holds true if there are smokers, pets, or allergy or asthma sufferers in the house.
4 Signs It’s Time for Duct Cleaning
It’s not all that easy to overlook the importance of duct cleaning. The longer they go without getting cleaned, their dirtiness becomes more noticeable. Here are four warning signs to invest in duct cleaning:
1. Dusty Vents and Grills
Wall and ceiling air ducts are normally covered with a grill. If you notice the grills keep getting dusty, there’s a good chance dust in the ductwork is getting stuck to the grills as air flows through them. This only happens if there is an excessive amount of dust, indicating that it’s time to clean the ductwork.
2. Poor Airflow
Airflow impacts HVAC efficiency as well as temperature control. Dirty ductwork hinders proper airflow by reducing the amount of air that makes its way through the HVAC system. If you notice less air flowing through the system, this is a sign to have a professional check the ductwork for dust and grime buildup.
3. Bad Smells
If you detect a foul odor in your home, observe whether the odor improves or worsens when the HVAC system turns on and off. If it gets worse when cycling on, you probably have dust burning in the ductwork. The dust gets stuck in the ductwork, and heat from the HVAC system burns it. The only way to fix this problem is to get the ductwork cleaned.
4. Constant Dusting
Minimal dust buildup is natural in all homes. If you find yourself having to dust on a daily basis, though, you may want to consider duct cleaning. With fresh ductwork, you can reduce your weekly cleaning time.
Take Advantage of Duct Cleaning Today!
Consider duct cleaning a regular aspect of home upkeep. Maintaining clean air ducts is an easy way to save money on utilities and extend the life of your home’s infrastructure. Contact Beltway Air Conditioning & Heating now to schedule a duct cleaning appointment. We offer a variety of indoor air quality, heating, and cooling services.
