This was for two systems in a very large old house with over 20 supply ducts and 3 returns, mostly metal, some plastic. The previous owner had never had the ducts cleaned. The little bit of poking around that we did revealed a situation that wasn’t pretty. We called Patrick on Thursday and he arrived with his two helpers on Sunday. The job took 5 hours. They have a 20-hp vacuum and a large compressor in a van that they park outside, running long hoses into the house. Our system was clearly not designed to be cleaned, and they had to saw a number of access holes.
For metal ducts, they exhaust from a large access hole and then thread a compressor hose and nozzle through a vent or small hole and blast away the filth. For plastic ducts, they thread through a spinning brush attached to its own vacuum so as not to damage the material. All vents were carefully removed and replaced. They also cleaned the coils.
Patrick explained that our quite dirty air filter could be almost doubling the cost of electricity to run the air handler. That very useful piece of advice will be almost like a rebate on the cost.
And now for the before and after pictures. Before cleaning, the ducts were covered with a thick layer of filth. Even worse, there was black stuff on top of the filth. You couldn’t see metal or plastic. Aside from supporting a biological zoo, this could not have had a good effect on air flow. The after pictures seemed to have come from a different house (I joked about the possibility that he had used Photoshop to generate them). Everything was spotless, and you saw long runs of bright, shiny metal and plastic.
We’re aware of the debate on the value of air duct cleaning. However, at some level of grossness, everyone would agree that something needs to be done. We very highly recommend Patrick.