HVAC Archives - Rod Borghese

How We Keep Your Air Ducts Clean

Clean air ducts will ensure the longevity of the whole HVAC system, and that can be achieved through proper maintenance. Fail to follow those guidelines and your air con system will suffer breakdowns that will cost you more money than you would expect. Now, you don’t want that, and you also don’t want to spend too much money on the maintenance.

The price of air duct cleaning may seem high, but that refers to HVAC systems found in large buildings. In a case of a household system, the price is scaled down, and the service is affordable to anyone that has a full-time job.

If you want to know what you pay, then read through this post as we will try to explain basics of the air duct cleaning business.

Old good step-by-step cleaning always works

We at air duct cleaning Miami might use powerful equipment for cleaning large HVAC systems found in buildings that have fifty or more floors, but when it comes to cleaning household HVAC, we turn back to regular tools and classic step-by-step cleaning. So, you may wonder, what does this type of cleaning include and whether you can emulate a part of it. Well, read through and find out how we do it.

The first step we do when we enter the house where we will work is to cover supply registers. We do this by removing its cover and using a paper towel or thin plastic sheets to cover the hole, and it will prevent any dust from entering the living quarters.

The next step is to clean the air duct while keeping the fan on. This helps us move the dust out of the system without the need to bring additional tools for removal of the dust. We also make sure that the filter is operational as an error on the filter can allow the dust to go into the motor and wreck it.

The rest is simple as we use several different tools to dislodge the dust from all nooks and crannies and allow the fan to blow them away (in this question into the air outside the house). After that is finished, we are left with the detailed cleaning of all elements of the HVAC system, which includes everything from electrics to ducts.

What we use to clean your HVAC

We usually bring a medium to strong vacuum that will suck up all the dust out of the HVAC. It helps the fan to extract the dust. We also tend to bring a filter with us as the one that stays in the system during the cleaning won’t be able to serve after that.

A good brush and some paper towels are also essential tools for this line of work. They are similar to chemicals, as they are indispensable in cleaning air ducts. Those chemicals are so important because they kill germs and bacteria that stay in the HVAC even when it is properly cleaned. They ensure that the HVAC is clean and that there isn’t anything that might endanger the health of the denizens of the building.

Breakdown of the HVAC system

The air duct system isn’t as simple as some lead you to believe. Its cleaning isn’t fast or cheap, and if you hire a contractor who promises that, then you will waste your money on nothing. We will give you a list of HVAC parts and explain to you what each of them represents. We hope that you will realize how extensive this system is and why it’s so expensive to clean it properly.

Essential air duct system elements

These are the core elements of the HVAC system. We might go into details with some of them so you could understand some differences between them and alternatives that exist.

Vents are installed in the building upon its construction. There is the option to install later, but that makes it harder to hide them within the construction of the wall. They disperse the warm/cold air into rooms. They are usually rectangular and metal so they can withstand various changes in temperature.

Air ducts conduct the air throughout the building from the furnace to vents that channel it in different rooms. Some ducts have dampers which allow owners to regulate the flow of the air and thus increase or decrease the amount of hot/cold air that goes through the system.

A furnace in a large building is huge, and it is usually located in the basement. Different types of heaters exist; some are filled with steam, some with air and some with water. It pushes the air into the air duct system.

Heat Exchanger and evaporator coil have similar purposes, one supplies the pipes with hot and the other with cold air. Heat exchanger pulls in cold air in, heats it and returns it the building, and the evaporator coils do the opposite.

Other HVAC system elements

Other items that are essential in this system include a thermostat, condensing unit, and refrigerant lines.

The thermostat is a remote controller of the HVAC system, and it allows the owner to set the temperature they want. Every room has one of these, and you can set different temperatures in every room. Every thermostat is located on the wall unless the owner asked for something else.

The Condensing Unit turns the air into liquid and sends it to the furnace through refrigerant lines. This liquid is the source of cold air the HVAC creates. The liquid travels through those lines to the coil, and from there it’s spread with small nozzles which allow it to turn back in gaseous form.

Estimation of the HVAC cleaning

The actual process of cleaning the vents would be impossible with the evaluation of the workload. That is an important process that can determine whether the work will go smoothly or not. This is also a good way to discern between good and bad cleaning company (in case you didn’t hire us). A business that is out there just for money will pay little attention to the estimation of the workload and thus they will not be as good as it should be.

This post is an explanation as well as a set of guidelines that a real and honest contractor will follow. If you notice that your contractor isn’t following these, then you should look for another one.

Some basic guidelines we follow

The NADCA specifications about cleaning are the law in this business, and every decent company should follow them. They are created by people who understand the necessity of the clean air ducts and some of them are environmental consultants and project engineers. Those specifications contain many relevant facts including the area that have to be cleaned, sectors that are susceptible to mold, documents a contractor needs to have and so on.

Every entrepreneur, including us, will send an evaluator who will ask for mechanical blueprints of the HVAC system. The design will give us an idea of what we need to use to clean the system properly. It also gives us an insight into spots that may gather dust which isn’t easily cleaned. If an evaluator doesn’t ask for a blueprint, then his employer has no intention to do the assignment properly.

The said plans are only the beginning of the evaluation as they represent a map and a list of all significant parts of the HVAC system. The estimation of the workload starts only after our assessment officer reviews those mechanical blueprints. Once he does that he can go and start breaking down the system in areas and he can start locating those parts. The parts in question include, among the others, coils, registers, grills, air handlers and so on.

How do we determine the fee for the cleaning?

The cost for the job isn’t same for everyone as that would be unfair for people. You can ask our employees to explain you in detail about what you pay and why the price is like that. The charge consists of three parts, the pay for the number of man hours, the consumables and other miscellaneous things. Man hours represent the number of hours it will take to clean everything while consumables charge represents the amo8unt of chemicals and other materials we will have to spend. Miscellaneous charges represent the costs of transport as well as the cost of additional work like installation of electrical pigtails and so on.