The weather is getting cool and beautiful! The foliage is changing! It’s time for fall festivals, family gatherings, and getting ready for winter. And soon, you’ll be spending a lot more time indoors. Will you be breathing clean, fresh air in there? Or will you be breathing clouds of dust, and maybe even mold spores? How can you tell?
The air you breathe all winter has been circulating around your home and going through your HVAC system’s ductwork over and over, bringing with it anything that lurks inside those ducts. And what is going on inside your ductwork? Since you can’t easily see or clean in there, who knows? What you need is professional duct cleaning. Here’s why.
Dust
If you haven’t had your ducts cleaned in more than a couple of years, there is certainly dust accumulating there. It can cause respiratory irritation or worsen existing conditions such as allergies and asthma, but it’s not just your lungs it’s getting into. The dust will settle throughout your home, blanketing your furniture and increasing the amount of cleaning you need to do.
Mold
The reason you can’t see what’s going on inside your ducts is that they’re enclosed. This means it’s very dark in there. If you’ve ever done a mold-growing experiment in school or as a project with your kids—or by accident in the back of your bread box—you know that darkness makes a great environment for mold to grow. All it needs is a little bit of moisture, and an entire ecosystem can develop.
Molds reproduce by releasing spores that float through the air, landing anywhere and everywhere, and growing into new colonies if they find a hospitable spot. So any mold in your ducts can make it much easier for mold to grow all over your home. This creates hard-to-clean messes, stains, and unpleasant mildew odors.
Mold can also cause or worsen health issues. Some people are severely allergic to mold. Some molds are toxic enough that even people without any allergies will react to them and can even get severely ill. Any unexplained respiratory or skin symptoms, headaches, or fatigue could be due to mold and are a good reason to get your ducts cleaned.
Professional Duct Cleaning
Of course, you could open up your vents and bang around inside there with a broom or something. You’d be more likely to kick up clouds of dust and mold spores than get anything truly clean, and you’d probably cause damage to the ducts while you were at it. So what do professionals do differently?
The first thing professionals have is knowledge of the different duct types. They are different shapes and textures and made of various materials, which means they require different cleaning methods. The second thing is training and experience cleaning the ducts without damaging them. The third is specific tactics for minimizing the amount of mess that gets spread around during the process.
When you get duct cleaning in Beaver Dam, WI this fall, be sure to rely on qualified professionals.
You can always count on 24-Hour Home Comfort Services, your heating and cooling specialists.