I am going to educate you on the matter. A good friend of mine has been doing air duct cleaning for years and I took a day to follow him and see what he does for a living.

I was surprised that most people, including myself, did not know anything about this topic.

So how do you know if you need to get your ventilation system cleaned?

Here are a few questions to ask yourself. Are you experiencing more allergy problems than in the past? Are you always dusting? Does the air in your home smell foul or not as fresh as it should be?

If you answer yes to any of those simple questions than you probably need your air ducts cleaned. Its a service that does not have to be done every year, in fact not even close to that, but over the lifespan of any HVAC or ventilation system it needs to be done periodically.

Clean air is essential to life. Many times we are breathing contaminated air in our homes without even knowing it. In our houses that haven’t had their ducts cleaned for a while there is dust, dust mites, wood shavings, chunks of drywall,other construction materials, hair, bugs, fur, and sometimes rodents and mildew. And the air coming into your house is passing by all those things.

You can take a look for yourself in most cases! Pull up a floor register or look into a return vent from the wall. Take a flashlight and shine it inside. I can guarantee you that you be surprised at what you find! And most people have no clue at all because its something unseen and not in plain sight.

I went around the city with my friend looking at the vents of peoples houses and you would not believe how clogged some people's ducts were. A lot of these houses were really nice houses too. The owners had no clue how bad it had gotten. Many of them called for an inspection because a friend had recommended it to them or they read something about it in magazine or article online. They had gotten used to breathing bad air and did not even know it. It was not until we did the service that the owner could tell the difference because he was finally breathing clean fresh air. And what a difference it was. Most people were extremely pleased.

So when you call an air duct cleaning company out what do they do?

Basically they utilize two tools. A very power vacuum and air whips.

The vacuum is no ordinary vacuum. Its extremely powerful and made just for cleaning air ducts. Its connected to your system and draws in all the debris and bad contaminants into it.

The vacuum alone is not powerful enough to dislodge everything. This is where the air whips come into place. This tool is used to agitate the contaminates that are really stuck to the vents so that they can be sucked into the vacuum.

If you live in an usually wet place like Washington or Oregon the serviceman may then proceed to scrub your vents with a special cleaner to get rid of mildew but most areas to do require this.

And that's basically it. Simple process but to do it right it takes several hours. On average it will take three hours for most homes. Businesses will take even longer.

Its this reason why this cleaning will usually cost $300-$400. This is a fair price. If you see this service being advertised for less than that I would be very leery. There are a lot of companies out there charging really cheap rates but not doing a good job. In this industry its called a "blow and go." This type of service is basically worthless.

Overall I learned a lot from observing my friend's job this day. I was always curious what he did and never understood why people needed this service done. Its a very smart investment to get every four to five years. Its for the health of your family and for the air quality of your house.

Hopefully I gave you some food for thought and something to look into.