Cleaning Air Ducts

The ducts in your home are like your bronchial tubes – they carry air all throughout the house and the air ends up in your lungs. Particulate matter, allergens, mold, and organisms can live inside your home’s air ducts, and when they start to accumulate, the air you breathe becomes dirtier – automatically!

Why Clean Air Ducts?

Dust is a good place to start – many people do not know what exactly is in dust – it is just this sort of iffy-looking grayish stuff that accumulates on surfaces and has to be removed on a regular basis. The old mantra “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” is an accurate one.

• Dead Skin – The human body sheds millions of dead skin cells daily, and at a rapid rate. When you count how many people live in your home, or even visit, the number of dead skin cells in your home’s atmosphere is staggering.

• Dust Mite Droppings – Dust mites love dust, because it contains so much dead human skin. They eat the skin, which is a great protein source; then they digest it and out, comes the resulting product: dust mite droppings.

• Pet Dander – Pet dander is sort of like human dander- except it comes from the pets who share our homes, or from pets we encounter in other places. Dander contains a bit more hair, and it also contains particles of pets’ saliva that can really cause allergies to flare up.

• Pollen – Pollen is in our homes year round, and it is another major component of dust. It comes in through microscopic cracks, and hitches rides on people and pets going in and out.

• Mold – Mold travels in little airborne packages called spores. It looks for new places to settle in – mold is particularly problematic in ductwork that has frequent exposure to damp air. Damp air plus dark, and probably fairly warm atmosphere, equals mold growth.

Even if you clean your home assiduously, you will not be able to clean the ductwork yourself. You can vacuum around the ducts and vents, but if you start to see a dusty looking pattern, the time has long since come and gone to clean those ducts. Professional cleaners can come in, cleaning air ducts using air duct cleaning equipment and install new filters quickly and for less money than you probably imagine.

In addition to cleaning air ducts on a regular basis, be sure to invest in a good air purifier or consider installing a whole home air purifier. Air purifiers trap allergens and hazardous dust, and keep them from circulating throughout your ductwork and your home; you will notice the difference in your indoor air quality right away. So, why not consider an air purifier today?

Return to "Indoor Air Pollution" from "Cleaning Air Ducts".

Return to "Going Green" from "Cleaning Air Ducts".