Climate Masters Blog: Posts Tagged ‘Duct Cleaning’

How Duct Cleaning Benefits Indoor Air Quality

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2014

“Regular duct cleaning? Is that really necessary?” This is something people often ask when they hear about duct cleaning services. It’s an understandable reaction, since it’s difficult to see the inside of the ventilation system in a home and know the level of dust and dirt contamination inside.

But duct cleaning is necessary every few years, and in some cases every year. It will help you keep a cleaner house. It will reduce airflow friction along the ducts so your HVAC system won’t overwork and drain money. It will prevent debris from entering the cabinet of your AC or furnace and create repair needs. And, perhaps most importantly of all, it will raise the quality of your indoor air.

Cleaning ductwork isn’t a job you can perform on your own; it requires specialists with pro-level tools. For duct cleaning in St. Augustine, FL, call up Climate Masters and our indoor air quality team.

Duct cleaning and indoor air quality

How serious is the quality of your indoor air? The U.S. EPA has identified it as a major health threat. Most U.S. citizens spend 85% of their time indoors, and when you consider how much of that time is inside their own homes, the quality of the air there is of great importance. Since most houses have an effective seal against the outside air in order to maintain comfortable indoor temperatures in winter and summer, there is little fresh air circulation.

Here is where duct cleaning plays an important part. Inside your home, your HVAC system circulates air throughout the rooms, and it will pick up dust, dirt, and other contamination and draw them through the return air vents into the ducts. In this sealed environment, the pollutants will begin to build up and then blow out into your living spaces, lowering the air quality. Skin and eye-irritation, asthma, headaches, and cold and flu-like symptoms are common problems due to low indoor air quality. People with allergies are especially hard hit.

But with regular cleaning of your ducts, you remove one of the major reservoirs that collect the contaminants that cause these troubles. It’s difficult to access the interior of ductwork, and the dirt and dust inside is hard to remove—unless you have professionals take on the job. Using power vacuums and agitation equipment, duct cleaning specialists can make your ducts almost like new.

How often you need to have your ducts cleaned depends on your house and living situation. If you have pets or if people with allergies live in your home, you should consider having cleaning done every year. Many homes will benefit from it every other year. Consult with a duct cleaner about the best schedule for you.

To start right away with duct cleaning (how long has it been?) call Climate Masters. We have the tools and the skill to give you a great duct cleaning in St. Augustine, FL.

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3 Reasons to Call Duct Cleaning Professionals

Tuesday, January 28th, 2014

Most homes have ductwork installed for their HVAC system. Even if you use a boiler to heat your home, you probably have a central air conditioner for warm weather that requires ductwork. Because ducts remain mostly hidden from sight, it’s easy to forget that they require regular professional cleaning to keep them free from the dust and other contaminants that can start to develop inside.

Here are 3 good reasons that you should call duct cleaning professionals. And you do need professionals, since accessing your ducts and providing the right level of cleaning and vacuuming power isn’t something you can achieve on your own. Call Climate Masters for any ductwork services in St. Augustine, FL that you need.

1. Increased heating/cooling efficiency and reduced power bills

When ducts begin to develop a layer of dirt and other debris along their inner lining, it increases the airflow resistance. Ductwork designers try to create ducts that have the least amount of friction possible against the flow of air, but dirty ducts interfere with this. As airflow drops, you’ll not only receive less effective heating and cooling, your HVAC system will need to work harder—and that means higher monthly power bills.

2. Increased indoor air quality

The U.S. EPA has identified low air quality as a major health concern in the U.S. On average, you probably spend 85% of your time indoors, and more than half of that time will be inside your home. To keep the air quality of your house at its best, you need to have clean ducts that won’t blow out dust, dirt, dander, pollen, hair, or other pollutants that can cut into air quality.

3. A cleaner home

All that dust sent out from the vents of your HVAC system will do more than lower your air quality. It will also make your house dustier and dirtier in general. If you discover that no matter how much you sweep, clean, and dust, the dust comes back right away, then you probably have a dirty ductwork system.

At Climate Masters, our professionals in service on ductwork in St. Augustine, FL care about your indoor air quality, and we care about the efficiency of your heating system.

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This Is How Your Ducts Are Cleaned

Sunday, January 12th, 2014

Duct cleaning service in St. Augustine, FL is an important part of the regular maintenance on your home. Cleaning the ductwork helps improve your indoor air quality, keeps debris from entering your HVAC system, and reduces the resistance to airflow so you get efficient heating and cooling all year.

Duct cleaning requires the work of trained specialists. It is difficult for a non-professional to access the ducts to properly clean them, and the tools involved are too expensive and complex for amateur use. You can’t just use a commercial spray cleaner and dust mop for this job—and you shouldn’t try to climb into your ducts, no matter how often you’ve seen it done in movies and TV shows!

Professionals are only a phone call away: Climate Masters offers complete duct cleaning services, as well as duct sealing, repair, and replacement.

How professionals perform duct cleaning

Duct cleaning varies depending on what sort of contaminants need removal. At the basic level—clearing out dust and dirt—ductwork involves the use of special high-powered vacuums. The vacuums have long hoses that can snake up into the vents along your ducts. They place whole sections of the ductwork under negative pressure. What this does is dislodge ground-in dirt that would otherwise be too difficult for the air suction in the vacuum to remove. Once the dirt has been loosened, the vacuum can draw up the debris.

To get at contaminants that are even tougher to remove, duct cleaning specialists make use of powerful rotary brushes on long hoses. These brushes loosen dirt without causing damage to the walls of the ducts.

Another useful tool for cleansings ducts are non-toxic sanitizers and deodorizers. These cleaners can eliminate a number of bacterial pollutants inside your ducts without leaving behind a dangerous residue that will waft out of the vents afterwards. This step will help make your ducts almost as fresh as when they were new.

For serious cases of microbiological growth, such as mold (a common problem in Florida’s humidity), duct cleaners can install UV germicidal lights, which destroy the cellular structure of biological contaminants and help prevent their return.

Schedule your duct cleaning today

How often should you have professional duct cleaning? Although ducts will begin to gather dust at different rates, we suggest you schedule cleaning at least annually. If you have noticed signs that the ducts are seriously dirty (dust spreading throughout the house, a spike in energy bills due to the HVAC system, an increase in allergic symptoms) you should have the ducts cleaned as soon as possible.

Let Climate Masters take care of your duct cleaning in St. Augustine, FL. Our range of indoor air quality services will make sure your ductwork receives the treatment it needs.

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Why Should I Get Duct Cleaning Before Winter Is Here?

Tuesday, October 1st, 2013

If you have ductwork in your home, it usually serves two purposes: channeling cool air most of the year, and channeling warm air during Florida’s brief but often unpredictable winter season. Ducts are carefully sealed along their length to prevent loss of pressure during normal operation. But as a consequence, dust and other debris that can collect inside will begin building up. Just running your air conditioner during the summer doesn’t clear out these pollutants—it will probably draw in more, especially if you’ve neglected to change the air filter once a month.

Winter is right around the corner, and you may already have a large amount of dirt and other contaminants sitting in your ducts. Before you start using those ducts to circulate heat, get them cleaned out. Call Climate Masters to get thorough duct cleaning in St Augustine.

But wait, you may be thinking, how bad can dirty ducts really be? The truth is that contamination in your ducts poses health risks, and also contributes to lowering your heater’s efficiency and causing dust to circulate throughout your home. Getting your ducts cleaned will benefit you in numerous ways.

According to the EPA, low indoor air quality is a major health concern in the US, where people spend a large amount of time inside. Breathing poor quality air can lead to respiratory problems, eye irritation, and sleeping difficulties. People with allergies are especially sensitive to poor quality air. A furnace or heat pump blowing dust, pollen, and dander around your home contributes enormously to reducing its air quality. Most worrying of all are biological pollutants that form in the dark of ducts. All of these can be fixed with thorough professional cleaning.

The other benefits of getting your ducts cleaned before winter are improving heating efficiency, reducing the strain on your heater, and keeping dust from settling around the house.

You’ve probably seen action movies or thrillers where the hero had to crawl through air ducts to escape the villains or spy on them. Fun… but you don’t want to try to crawl through ducts in real life, and you couldn’t do much good if you did. You should hire professional duct cleaners to do the job of getting the dirt out of your ductwork. They’ll use special tools and access your ducts without causing damage.

Climate Masters has performed duct cleaning in St Augustine FL for so many years that we can get your ductwork clean in no time at all. Contact us before your furnace or heat pump turns on for the winter.

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When Is The Best Time to Hire a Duct Cleaning Expert?

Wednesday, September 18th, 2013

Ducts are one of those hidden components of your household that quietly make life better for everyone in it. They branch out from your air conditioning or HVAC system, moving cool air in the summer time and warm air in the winter to every corner of your house. In most cases, they’re composed of sturdy materials and perform their jobs without a fuss. But over time, dust and debris can build up inside of them, necessitating a duct cleaning. In St. Augustine, FL, duct cleaning services are also necessary to deal with bacterial growth, created when moisture gets into the ducts and made worse by our sultry Florida weather.

So when is the best time to hire a duct cleaning expert? Usually when signs of dirty ducts become apparent.

Because ducts are usually located in out-of-the-way spots like the attic or inside your walls, you rarely notice when things start to go wrong. Look for subtle yet telltale signs of dust entering your household. If family members suffer from allergies, they may have attacks more often than normal. If your house seems to have a hard time staying clean, no matter how many times you dust it, there may be trouble. If you detect a strange odor coming from the ducts, there may be bacterial growth that needs to be dealt with. In the most extreme cases, you may detect a reduced air flow coming from your vents: signs that build-up has gotten so bad in the ducts that it’s interfering with their ability to circulate air.

Whenever you detect those signs, it’s best to hire a duct cleaning expert as quickly as possible. A trained service operative will undertake a duct cleaning with courtesy and professionalism: treating your home with the utmost care while providing solid, reliable cleaning for the ducts themselves. The results should not only improve your air quality, but may illuminate larger issues such as leaks or breaches in your ducts that could cost you money in higher electric bills. In St. Augustine, FL, duct cleaning services are provided by the trained experts at Climate Masters. If you’ve decided that now is the best time to hire a duct cleaning expert, give us a call. You’ll be glad you did.

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