Air Duct & HVAC Cleaning
The System That Spread It Still Has It
After a fire, a mold problem, or a water loss that reached the HVAC, the ductwork holds what the rooms held. Restore the rooms and leave the system, and the first cold morning puts it all back. HEPA source removal, as part of the restoration scope.
If nothing happened to your house, you probably do not need this.
Duct cleaning is one of the most aggressively oversold services in home maintenance, and the EPA's own guidance is that routine cleaning has not been demonstrated to prevent health problems in a system with no contamination history. We are not going to tell you otherwise to fill a truck.
Where it genuinely matters is after an incident. A fire pushes smoke particulate into every run while the system is going. A mold problem that reached the plenum or the coil turns the HVAC into a distribution network. A water loss in a crawlspace or under-floor plenum leaves ductwork that cannot dry itself.
In those cases, cleaning the rooms and skipping the system is not a saving. It is a guarantee of doing it twice.
What We Will Not Do
We will not quote a flat whole-house special over the phone, because the scope depends on the system and on what happened to it.
We will not fog antimicrobials or spray encapsulants into ductwork as a default add-on.
And we will not bill routine maintenance cleaning to an insurance claim. It is not a claim item.
Six situations where the system matters.
All of them share one thing: something got into the ductwork that was not supposed to be there.
After Fire & Smoke
Soot and odor particulate settled inside the ductwork during the fire, waiting to be redistributed the next time the system runs.
After Mold Remediation
Where moisture reached the plenum, coil, or runs, the system becomes both reservoir and distribution network for spores.
After A Water Loss
Ducts in crawlspaces, slabs, and under-floor plenums that took on water during the event and cannot dry on their own.
Visible Growth At Registers
Discoloration around supply registers or on the coil is a symptom of moisture inside the system, not a cleaning problem on the surface.
After Construction
Drywall dust and debris pulled into an unsealed system during a remodel or a rebuild, including one of ours.
Rodent Or Pest Intrusion
Contamination and nesting material inside runs, which is a decontamination job, rather than a cleaning one.
How It Is Actually Done
Source removal, not a rinse.
The system goes under negative pressure with HEPA filtration, and every run is agitated mechanically so debris is pulled into containment instead of being blown into the rooms.
Supply and return runs, registers and grilles, the plenum, the blower compartment, and the coil where it is accessible. A vacuum held at a register cleans the first two feet and moves the rest further in.
Duct cleaning questions
Next on the same job.
Bay Area HVAC Decontamination
Finish the rooms and skip the system, and you will do the rooms again.
Licensed C-10 & General B · CSLB #1158693 · Bonded & Insured
