Duct Cleaning in Schenectady, NY
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Step 1 of 3: Equipment
Eight months of heat pushes a lot of dust through your ducts
Your furnace runs October through May here. That's most of the year moving air through the same ducts, and every pass carries dust, pet hair, and whatever else is in the house into that ductwork, where it settles in the bends and low points.
Winter nights averaging 17°F mean the system runs long and often to keep up, so more air moves through those ducts than it would somewhere milder. The buildup doesn't stop your furnace from working, but it rides along in the air it pushes into every room.
- 8 months
- October through May, your furnace pushes air through your ducts
- 2 months
- July through August, your air conditioner does the same
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NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
- How often should air ducts be cleaned?
- There's no fixed schedule that fits every house. If anyone in the house has allergies, or there's been water damage, pests, or a renovation that kicked dust into the system, it's worth doing sooner rather than later. Homes with pets or a lot of dust in the air may need it more often too. A contractor can look inside the ducts and tell you what condition they're actually in, which is more useful than guessing by the calendar.
- Is air duct cleaning worth it?
- It depends on what's actually in the ducts right now. If dust is visibly blowing out of the vents, there's a musty smell when the system runs, or you can see debris when you look into a vent, cleaning is worth doing. If the ducts are just old but otherwise clean, cleaning them won't make much difference. A contractor can inspect the ductwork and tell you whether it will actually help in your case.
- What does air duct cleaning involve?
- A contractor connects a vacuum system to the ductwork and uses brushes or air tools to knock dust and debris loose from the inside of the duct walls, then pulls it out through the vacuum. Registers and grilles get cleaned too, since they collect the dust the ducts feed into the room. The furnace or air handler often gets a look and sometimes a cleaning as part of the job, since it shares the same air path. The filter gets replaced at the end, since a clean duct system feeding through a dirty filter defeats the point.