Duct Cleaning in Bellows Falls, VT
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Nine months of heating pushes a lot of air through your ducts
Your furnace runs September through May here, nine months of the year. On winter nights averaging 14°F, it cycles on and off for hours at a stretch, pushing air through the same ducts again and again. Dust, pet hair, and the fine particles that settle out of moving air build up along the way, especially at the bends and near the vents.
With a fifth of Vermont households losing power for a full day or more last year, furnaces here also shut down and restart more than most. Each restart stirs up whatever has settled in the ductwork and sends it back into the house. Over years of that cycle, the buildup can restrict airflow to the rooms farthest from the furnace, leaving them harder to heat.
- 9 months
- September through May, your furnace pushes air through your ducts
- 1 months
- July through July, your air conditioner does the same
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
- How often should air ducts be cleaned?
- There's no fixed schedule that fits every home. Ducts stay cleaner longer if the filter gets changed on schedule, since the filter is what keeps most of the dust out in the first place. Pets, a recent renovation, or allergies in the house are all reasons to look sooner rather than later. A contractor can look inside the ducts and tell you what shape they're actually in rather than going by the calendar.
- Is air duct cleaning worth it?
- It depends on what's in the ducts. If dust is visibly blowing out of the vents, there's a musty smell when the furnace runs, or debris got into the system during a renovation, cleaning solves a real problem. If the ducts are just old and nobody's checked them in years, a contractor can look first before you commit to cleaning, since not every system needs it.
- What does air duct cleaning involve?
- A contractor connects a vacuum system to the ductwork and uses brushes or air tools to loosen dust and debris from inside the duct walls, then pulls it all out through the vacuum. Each supply and return vent gets cleaned this way, and the furnace or air handler usually gets attention too, since dust collects on the blower and coil as well as in the ducts. The registers and grilles get wiped down at the end so the whole path the air travels is clean, not just the ductwork in between.