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Wow! Did they show you a picture of what a dirty duct looks like and then what yours should look like when they are done? I would bet that if they took a scope and took a picture of the first curve above your unit in the attic, your duct will look like they had already cleaned it. The first curve will catch most of the dust, but you won't see any.

Today's Scrabble letters: AMCS

I would not clean the flexible ducts in your attic. It will do no good, and the equipment could puncture your duct and cause a major problem in your attic.

It is a good idea to clean the dryer duct which is a metal duct. Cleaning it can prevent a fire in your house. This project should cost less than $100.

We haven't had ours cleaned and I have no plans to have that done.

I'll second that. :thumbup::thumbup:

I would be very cautious of any cleaning involving the flexible duct work, including a document stating that ANY damage and repair will be fully covered by the cleaning company.

I agree, but they can puncture the flexible duct and the homeowner may not detect it until months later, and the contractor will most likely deny responsibility.

And I do it myself. The duct came away from the machine so I took advantage of the situation and vacuumed it. Then one little screw tightened the bracket holding the duct. The dryer is on wheels and rolls easily. Everything is working again. Cost =$0.

I had a manufactured home on the historic side built in 1989. I looked in a duct that went half way through the house. I didn't see any significant dust.

That's one of the biggest scams in TV.

Forget it and don't ever give it another thought.

One of the biggest scams in and outside TV.

In my "up north" area they hire call centers overseas with hundreds of people to randomly call people here for duct cleaning and they pay the call centers a 20-30% cut for bookings.

So I had a tenant near Boston about 10-12 years ago. They were trying to weasel out of a lease. At one point, the husband claimed something "in the air" was causing his wife's asthma and breathing problem. He insisted that it must be junk in the AC vents. I called a friend in the HVAC business, who laughed at his claim. I eventually brought someone in to "clean the vents", just to protect myself. I was there when he did it ($350). It was a joke, what he pulled out of there.

The local news station around me did an expose on these companies. Had an HVAC guy inspect beforehand and there was a thin layer of dust but acceptable level. They brought in the "duct cleaners", actually 3 separate companies. None of the did anything that made the ducts any cleaner.

Sunkool is a major HVAC company in The Villages. OP, did they recommend that you needed to have this work performed?

Ditto.

Absolutely!

We had it done when we replaced our heat pump in 2020. Quite a bit of dirt was collected in the filter they had in their machine. This was in a 2008 built home and the previous owners had 2 dogs. We did not pay for this service, it was complimentary with the heat pump replacement done by Munns.

When I was in grad school in Nebraska, I made ends meet by working as a live-in apartment house manager who also made repairs. The apartment house had 23 units, no air conditioning, and gas heat provided by an individual unit in each apartment with direct output (no ductwork). The place was perhaps twenty years old. I discovered that the heater filters hadn’t been replaced in several years, and hardly any light could be seen; through them. I replaced them all with new filters, but they were thin and cheap, maybe a dollar each (this was 1980). I also discovered that in every case, the squirrel cage fan that sent the air circulating through the apartment was almost completely clogged with dark brown oily dust. There were perhaps fifty fins in each squirrel cage, and I had to run a screwdriver between each pair and scrape out this gunk, then vacuum it up. This cut gas use and greatly increased the negligible air flow.

But you use high quality filters, changed twice a year. Your fan isn’t covered with a half inch of oily dust. If there’s a light coating of dust on your ducts, it is normal and doesn’t matter. It’s rather like aluminum or iron naturally developing a light coating of oxide in contact with humidity. It doesn’t hurt anything.

If you use the worst quality filters you can get away with, you never change it, you fry foods every day without a lid and don’t capture that air-borne grease, you smoke heavily, you do things that emit a huge amount of dust, you have high humid in your house from open windows and doors all summer, and you turn off the AC for weeks at a time, you don’t need to worry. Unless your ducts have an inch of greasy dust buildup (and they definitely don’t!), don’t have your ducts checked. For most of us, it’s a scam.

Hooray for the Environmental Protection Agency! It says:
“ Duct cleaning has never been shown to actually prevent health problems. Neither do studies conclusively demonstrate that particle (e.g., dust) levels in homes increase because of dirty air ducts. This is because much of the dirt in air ducts adheres to duct surfaces and does not necessarily enter the living space. It is important to keep in mind that dirty air ducts are only one of many possible sources of particles that are present in homes. Pollutants that enter the home both from outdoors and indoor activities such as cooking, cleaning, smoking, or just moving around can cause greater exposure to contaminants than dirty air ducts. Moreover, there is no evidence that a light amount of household dust or other particulate matter in air ducts poses any risk to your health.

You should consider having the air ducts in your home cleaned if:

checkmark There is substantial visible mold growth inside hard surface (e.g., sheet metal) ducts or on other components of your heating and cooling system. There are several important points to understand concerning mold detection in heating and cooling systems:
Many sections of your heating and cooling system may not be accessible for a visible inspection, so ask the service provider to show you any mold they say exists.
You should be aware that although a substance may look like mold, a positive determination of whether it is mold or not can be made only by an expert and may require laboratory analysis for final confirmation. For about $50, some microbiology laboratories can tell you whether a sample sent to them on a clear strip of sticky household tape is mold or simply a substance that resembles it.
If you have insulated air ducts and the insulation gets wet or moldy it cannot be effectively cleaned and should be removed and replaced.
If the conditions causing the mold growth in the first place are not corrected, mold growth will recur.
checkmark Ducts are infested with vermin, e.g. (rodents or insects).
checkmark Ducts are clogged with excessive amounts of dust and debris and/or particles are actually released into the home from your supply registers.
If any of the conditions identified above exists, it usually suggests one or more underlying causes. Prior to any cleaning, retrofitting, or replacing of your ducts, the cause or causes must be corrected or else the problem will likely recur.

Some research suggests that cleaning heating and cooling system components (e.g., cooling coils, fans and heat exchangers) may improve the efficiency of your system, resulting in a longer operating life, as well as some energy and maintenance cost savings. However, little evidence exists that cleaning only the ducts will improve the efficiency of the system.

You may consider having your air ducts cleaned simply because it seems logical that air ducts will get dirty over time and should be occasionally cleaned. Provided that the cleaning is done properly, no evidence suggests that such cleaning would be detrimental. EPA does not recommend that the air ducts be cleaned routinely, but only as needed. EPA does, however, recommend that if you have a fuel burning furnace, stove or fireplace, they be inspected for proper functioning and serviced before each heating season to protect against carbon monoxide poisoning.

If you do decide to have your air ducts cleaned, take the same consumer precautions you normally would in assessing the service provider's competence and reliability.

Air duct cleaning service providers may tell you that they need to apply chemical biocide to the inside of your ducts as a means to kill bacteria (germs) and fungi (mold) and prevent future biological growth. They may also propose the application of a "sealant" to prevent dust and dirt particles from being released into the air or to seal air leaks. You should fully understand the pros and cons of permitting application of chemical biocides or sealants. While the targeted use of chemical biocides and sealants may be appropriate under specific circumstances, research has not demonstrated their effectiveness in duct cleaning or their potential adverse health effects. No chemical biocides are currently registered by EPA for use in internally-insulated air duct systems.”

Should You Have the Air Ducts in Your Home Cleaned? | US EPA

My personal opinion: all of this duct cleaning activity / promotions / sales, etc which seems to have become popular over just the past 10 years or so is just a gimmick. Yes, I can see some "debris" in my return ducts. However, when I look in my air ducts for each room, they are clean. Why? Well, that's why we have filters. The filters catch material that is returned to the air handler and the air coming back to the rooms is clean.

There is no reason to clean your ducts. Your indoor air is as good as your air filters. Put in a good filter and fuggetaboutit.

Same as driveway seal coating - that’s the biggest scam back home with asphalt driveways .
While ‘cleaning’ ducts won’t make them worse, seal coating is a very good way to heat up your surface and lighten your bank account

Duct cleaning the right way ??:icon_wink:

That's a reasonable quote. We had ours done because we had mold, and it was just about $750.

I'm curious. As I understand it, the duct cleaning process uses a rotating brush to sweep out dust and dirt that is inside the ducts. But the ducts are made of a flexible material that does not have a smooth inside surface. Rather, it has an accordion shape with a lot of nooks and crannies where dust and dirt can be trapped and cannot be reached by the rotating brush. So, how does this cleaning process eliminate mold from the ducts?

Oh? Did you hire a Licensed Mold Remediation Professional?

... or did you just believe the scammer "Vent Cleaning Contractor", that you actually had mold & he was authorized by the state, to remove mold?

I checked the ducts in my 40 yr old home in TV and they were surprisingly fine as far as I could reach. It may make a difference that my registers are from the ceiling, but I was happy to not see a bunch of mold.

Actually, duct cleaning is good for very old homes with metal ducts that might have been neglected over the years. But for our homes here in the Villages, unless someone was running the HVAC system without a filter for a long time, it's probably not necessary and for sure, you probably don't have any mold in the ducts.

Aha, I misunderstood, I thought we were talking about the dryer duct but actually we are talking about the heater ducts. I checked inside the heater ducts from various places and mine look almost completely new, house built in 2007. Not sure why, but the furnace filter is always changed on schedule. I also check the air quality in the house which is nearly always very good. Perhaps it’s the way the house was built.

Garden blower
 

If you are cleaning the dryer duct that goes to the outside all you need to do is use a garden blower and invite the grandkids over to watch all the stuff coming out the opening of the duct. It’s really cool if the duct exits through the roof.

Dryer Duct
 

The only reason we haver the dryer duct cleaned is because it makes a bend and it's possible for lint to accumulate and could possibly cause a house fire if not cleaned.