Duct Cleaning in Columbia, SC
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Step 1 of 3: Equipment
What builds up in Columbia's ducts
Your ductwork runs five months of the year for heat and most of the rest for cooling, moving the same air through the house again and again. Every pass picks up dust and pollen and carries it further into the system.
Richland County has seen 360 damaging wind events over the past ten years, and wind like that pushes pollen and debris into a duct system through any gap it can find. That buildup narrows the path the air travels, so the system works harder to move the same amount of air through the house.
- 5 months
- November through March, your furnace pushes air through your ducts
- 5 months
- May through September, your air conditioner does the same
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NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
- How often should air ducts be cleaned?
- There is no fixed schedule that fits every home. Homes with pets, smokers, or someone with allergies tend to need it more often than others. If you have just finished a renovation, get the ducts cleaned after the dust settles, since construction work pushes debris into the system that a normal filter change will not catch. A contractor can look inside the ducts and tell you whether there is enough buildup to matter right now.
- Is air duct cleaning worth it?
- It is worth it if your ducts actually have a buildup of dust, pet hair, or debris, not something you need to do on a fixed schedule regardless of what is inside them. A contractor can look inside the ducts and tell you if there is enough buildup to matter. Clean ducts help the air moving through your home, but they will not fix a musty smell coming from somewhere else in the house, like a damp crawlspace.
- What does air duct cleaning involve?
- A contractor connects a vacuum system to the ductwork and uses brushes or compressed air tools to knock loose dust and debris from the inside of the ducts, then pulls it out with the vacuum. This covers the supply and return ducts, the grilles and registers, and usually the coil and blower housing on the furnace or air handler. The whole system stays under negative pressure during the job so the dust being knocked loose does not blow into the rooms of your house.