Air ducts in your home play a crucial part in the cleanliness of your living space. They do this by circulating airflow from heating and cooling equipment in your home ensuring it is at the desired state throughout the day.
By removing contaminants from an air duct system, you greatly reduce the effects of dust and mold they contain.
Having clean and healthy air indoors is a must today with so many people suffering from allergies and spending the majority of their time indoors. This is why it is important to ensure your ducts are as clean as possible. After all, it is not uncommon to have immediate relief after the cleaning of your home’s air ducts.
Now, the question you’re probably asking right now is “How often should my air ducts be cleaned?”
It's recommended to clean your air ducts every 3 to 5 years. For those who have pets or are at risk of allergies, you may need to clean them more often.
Air duct cleaning involves the use of powerful vacuums that pull dust and other debris from deep inside the duct. This is so you can prevent it from circulating and moving throughout your home. Read on to learn 5 reasons why you should clean your air ducts.
1. To Create a Cleaner Living Environment
Have you ever noticed that no matter how consistent you are with dusting and cleaning your home, it’s always back the very next day?
Well, just like your furniture, air ducts can begin to accumulate dust as well.
It probably doesn’t make you feel any better to know that the dust doesn’t just stay in the ductwork. It’ll eventually spread to your living environment and settle on your furniture, bedding, flooring, etc.
The reason for this is due to the dust continuing to circulate through your home and ducts until they are properly cleaned.
A professional air duct cleaner will typically remove around 15 pounds of dust, dirt, and whatever else finds its way in there.
It is crazy to think that these particles have been circulating throughout your home every time you turn your system on.
By doing regular cleaning of your ducts, you are able to receive better and healthier air for yourself and your family throughout your home.
2. To Increase the Lifespan of Your Air Duct System
When air ducts aren’t cleaned out and neglected, the overall performance of the system is reduced.
In fact, the U.S. Department of Energy tells us that “spaces lose from 25% to 40% of the heating or cooling energy that passes through them.”
Not only is that a lot of wasted energy, but that’s also a good chunk of change coming from your pocket.
Now, what causes this energy loss? The loss of energy comes from things like dust, molds, rodent droppings, pet sheddings, and other miscellaneous items building up and blocking airflow.
This means that your system is going to have to work much harder to move air around.
With HVAC systems being so expensive, the last thing you want to do is have to replace them.
That is why the maintenance of your system is so important. It helps eliminate the unexpected expense of a new system and extends the life of the one you have.
3. To Prevent Health Issues
Keeping a clean home is important to good health, and having a clean home starts with having clean air to breathe.
The amount of harmful contaminants in the air is higher than you might think and can have an effect on people with asthma and allergy conditions.
Regular air duct cleaning can improve most of these health problems.
By having your air duct system properly cleaned, you protect your family, and yourself, from harmful dust, bacteria, and other contaminants.
4. To Remove Smells & Odors
It seems that every home has its own distinct smell that settles in over time. It’s not always the greatest thing either.
Contributions of this smell come from things like food, pets, cleaning supplies, smelly sports equipment, perfumes and colognes, dust, mold, and more.
Instead of always trying to cover up that smell with candles and air fresheners, you may want to use a different, more impactful solution.
A good cleaning of your air ducts will help remove (or at least reduce) this odor that is trapped inside giving you a cleaner smelling home.
5. To Improve Efficiency
Like I touched on earlier, a heavy buildup of dust and grime can have an impact on how efficiently your ducts are working.
When airflow is cut off at any level, it means that your system needs to work harder to get the same results. But when you remove that dirt and debris, the fans and motors that power it no longer need to work as hard distributing air.
A clean HVAC system is designed to operate as efficiently as possible. When you have a system operating as efficiently as possible, it will provide a more cost-effective performance year-round.
Regularly getting your air ducts cleaned is not only good for your health and those around you but is also a great way to increase the life of your HVAC system.
It’ll also save you a little cash in the long run.
Cleaning an air duct is something that you should get a professional to do, as a standard homeowner will not have the equipment necessary to do it right.
If there is one thing you take away from this article, it should be the importance of cleaning your air ducts and what can happen if you don’t.
