Causes of Air Duct Contamination

Air duct contamination is caused by human activity, pets, and some unavoidable factors.

Effects on Your Health

Have you ever heard of sick building syndrome? It happens when a building’s air ducts have not been cleaned for a long time, causing allergens to build up inside the pipes and spread throughout the building. Breathing this contaminated air may not cause allergies in some people, but in the long run it can cause other severe respiratory illnesses. The consequences of inhaling contaminated air can be as follows.

Constant Fatigue and Drowsiness

Inhaling excess pollen, dust, dander, bacteria, and mold spores can trigger a constant feeling of fatigue, discomfort, and sleepiness, as your body and immune system are in a constant battle with external irritants. Headaches can also be a common sign.

Development of Respiratory Infections

Coughing, sneezing, sore throat, runny nose, nasal congestion, headaches and low-level fevers are all signs of upper respiratory infection as a result of dirty air ducts. If this is the case, you need to get it cleaned up immediately so that the problems don’t develop into lower respiratory tract infections such as bronchitis or pneumonia.

Chronic illnesses

Such illnesses include:

• asthma;
• allergies;
• chronic rhinosinusitis;
• lung failure.

Dirty air vents cause these chronic conditions to progress to a more complex form and manifest on an ongoing basis. Studies show that the health of patients suffering from chronic respiratory diseases improved if the ventilation ducts of their homes were cleaned regularly.

Increased Autoimmune Disorders

It is a well-known fact that polluted outdoor air contributes to the deterioration of health of people suffering from autoimmune disorders, so what about the polluted air in our own homes, which we breathe more often?..

How often should the air ducts be cleaned? The standard recommendation for all homeowners is once every two to three years. However, if your home has recently been renovated, your asthma or allergy symptoms have worsened dramatically, or you have animals in the house, it’s worth cleaning your air ducts more frequently, once a year.

Conclusion

Air duct cleaning is an important part of home ownership and building maintenance. If you suspect that your HVAC system is not working efficiently, we highly recommend having your ducts inspected and cleaned as soon as possible. We recommend contacting professionals rather than doing the cleaning yourself. Safe Air Duct Cleaning has all the necessary skills and tools to clean your duct system in the shortest amount of time and at the lowest possible cost.

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Safe ADC charges a base cost of $250.00, which includes the first ten air vents, whether they supply or return air vents, the price also includes as many “connections” as necessary to perform the work. We do not have hidden extra charges that you will not know about initially.

The cost of cleaning the air duct in Toronto may increase depending on the following factors:

• availability of additional air vents;
• cleaning of additional components;
• the size of your air vent;
• degree of contamination;
• access to the air vents.

Consider each item separately.

Additional Air Vents and Additional Components

The cleaning of each additional vent after the ten that are included in the base price of 250 dollars is an additional $7.00 each.

Air Conditioning Systems Cleaning Cost

To keep the temperature and humidity in the house at a good level, you need to clean the air conditioning systems as well. The average cost of this type of cleaning is shown below.

Furnace Cleaning Cost

To achieve maximum energy efficiency and air quality, it is also necessary to take care of the complete cleaning of the furnace components: heat exchanger, blower, drain pan, plenum.

Evaporator and Condenser Coils Cleaning Cost

This point is critical because the degree of contamination of the coils will depend on the energy efficiency of your home, their excessive contamination will lead to more intensive work of the entire system, so it is better to take care of cleaning in time so that in the future not to face a full replacement, which will cost about $800-1600. The average cost to clean the evaporator and condenser coils in Toronto is between $130 and $540.

Dryer Vent Cleaning Cost

When cleaning the air duct, care must also be taken to clean the dryer vent. The clogged ventilation opening of the dryer can lead to reduced energy efficiency and in special cases can even lead to a fire. The average cost of cleaning the dryer air vent varies between $150 and $175.

Air Vent Size

Costs of cleaning air duct systems in residential and commercial areas in Toronto are different because commercial is often larger and more extensive than the average for the home. Residential ducts can be cleaned immediately and without prior evaluation, while commercial buildings require prior inspection and evaluation to provide accurate pricing. The average cost of residential and commercial air purification is as follows:

Degree of Contamination

If the internal microclimate in the room is all right, timely inspection and cleaning of the air duct system, absence of breakages, then unpleasant surprises are unlikely to make you nervous. However, there are different situations.

The presence of mould, fungus, parasites, a large amount of construction dust and pet hair, as well as dead animals, which gradually began to decompose in your air vent, increases the final cost by $1 per square foot. This is because the elimination of these pathogens requires special equipment, in some cases, special chemicals, as well as additional time to clean up qualitatively and without consequences for the residents of the house. In some severe cases, it is necessary to attract additional specialists.

Access to Air Vents

As a rule, all air duct systems are designed and installed predictably, so specialists have no questions when working with them. But if your air duct system is custom designed and has additional components that are difficult to access, it may take additional time and equipment to clean the air duct so that the cost will increase. To find out the exact cost of cleaning the air vent in your custom-built home, you will need to invite a specialist who will conduct an inspection and be able to estimate the exact amount.

Conclusion

Costs of cleaning ducts and air vents may seem high at first glance. However, inspecting and cleaning the ducts and vents every 2-5 years increases the energy efficiency of your home, improves the microclimate and health of your family, and helps you save money in the future by repairing broken air vents. The frequency of cleaning should be increased if you have pets, small children or family members with allergies.

To keep the air in your home healthy and of good quality, it is important that your ducts are cleaned by a professional company. Safe ADC Company is a company with years of experience and hundreds of satisfied customers, quality service and professionals. Contact us by phone for advice if you have any questions or pricing.

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The air accumulates harmful microorganisms and bacteria, which contribute to the development of serious diseases, moisture and steam coming from the bathroom, cause the formation of fungus and captivity. All this negatively affects the microclimate of the room, contributes to lung diseases, allergies, and other ailments.

When Duct Cleaning is Required

To understand that the air duct needs to be cleaned, you can use the following signs:

• dust, spider webs, and garbage have accumulated near the exhaust opening;
• the ventilation grille is covered with black patina, soot, and fat;
• in summertime the apartment began to warm up very quickly;
• after wet cleaning the dust appears again after a short period of time;
• draughts, appearing in the apartment when opening the front door, became much weaker than before.

To make sure that the duct should be cleaned finally, you can additionally check each duct opening. It is quite easy to do with the help of improvised means. When checking the draught, it is necessary that at least one of the vents in the apartment is open.

Such a grating clearly indicates that the duct in the apartment practically does not work, and the exhaust opening requires urgent cleaning.

Reasons for Inefficient Ventilation

The problems of the exhaust system are familiar to the owners of apartments built in the Soviet era. Residents of new buildings are mostly deprived of the pleasure of being present at their neighbors’ meals since the new houses are equipped with modern forced duct systems.

Algorithm for Duct Cleaning and Maintenance

Work begins with checking the duct system for proper functioning and inspecting the ducts externally and internally.

• Checking the integrity of the surfaces of ducts, the stability of attachment of all system elements. Visually inspected condition, with special attention paid to places of connections and fasteners.
• Checking the condition of electrical equipment. If necessary, the inspection of electric motors, electromechanical drives to control airflow. If there are filters, depending on their technical characteristics, periodic maintenance or complete replacement is carried out.
• Removal of dust and dirt from external surfaces, cleaning of ventilation grilles.
• The units are serviced depending on the peculiarities of the equipment and its purpose. Only trained specialists with tolerances are allowed to work on the units.

For disinfection, specialized companies with equipment and experience are involved. The disinfectant compounds are fed directly into the ducts in a spray condition. During the work, respiratory protection equipment is used. At the finish stage, rooms are actively ventilated.

As a rule, the cleaning of ducts takes 2.5-4 hours. However, the time required to clean the HVAC system depends on the size of the house, the number of ventilation openings, and the degree of contamination.

Cleaning filters are most thoroughly cleaned and disinfected, and the maximum number of microorganisms accumulates in these places. In any case, cleaning is best left for professionals to avoid health problems.

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