Duct Cleaning in Louisville, KY
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Seven months of heating pushes air through the same ducts
Your furnace runs October through April here, close to seven months a year. On the cold nights in between, down near 27°F, it runs longer and more often to keep up. All that air moving through the ducts carries dust, pet hair, and whatever else is in the house, and it settles in the bends and joints where the airflow slows down.
Jefferson County has also seen its share of winter storms and wind events over the past ten years, and power drops with them. When the furnace stops and starts back up, it stirs up what has settled and pushes it further into the system. Over time that buildup is what you smell when the heat kicks on, and it is what ends up back in the air of the rooms it heats.
- 7 months
- October through April, your furnace pushes air through your ducts
- 5 months
- May through September, your air conditioner does the same
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
- How often should air ducts be cleaned?
- Most homes do fine having it done every few years, but there's no fixed schedule that fits every house. It should happen sooner if dust is building up fast around the vents, if someone in the house has new allergy symptoms, or if you've had renovation work that left dust behind. Homes with pets or smokers usually need it more often than homes without. A contractor can look at your ducts and tell you what condition they're actually in rather than going by a calendar.
- Is air duct cleaning worth it?
- It depends on what's going on in your ducts right now. If you can see dust or debris coming out of the vents, if there's a musty smell when the system runs, or if someone in the home has unexplained allergy or breathing irritation, cleaning is worth doing. If none of that applies and your filter is doing its job, there's less benefit to it. Duct cleaning won't fix a heating or cooling problem on its own. It clears out what's built up in the ducts, and the filter still handles the ongoing job of cleaning the air that passes through.
- What does air duct cleaning involve?
- A contractor connects vacuum equipment to your duct system and pulls dust, debris and buildup out of the supply and return lines. They typically work register by register, often using a brush or agitation tool to loosen material stuck to the duct walls before it gets vacuumed out. The vents themselves get wiped down, and on some jobs the blower compartment and coil area get cleaned too since air moves through them on its way to the ducts. A good contractor will show you what they found before and after, so you can see what actually came out of your system.