Frequent cleaning no.
Every 10 years or so likely. We bought our house when it was 12 years old.
We had the house for 6 months before moving in with a brand new baby.
We had the whole thing cleaned, and sanitized, ripped all the old carpet out and replaced.
Also had the ducts cleaned. The amount of crap and at least 12 hot wheels that were in the collection bag was really surprising.
I think we paid $250 or so and I feel it was worth it.

I could see maybe wanting it done a few years after building your house since all the duct work was open to all the drywall dust but after that cleaning I imagine if you keep your filters clean you are probably fine unless you have some specific circumstances.

I got an estimate to do mine about a month ago and said no thanks. $1975 They estimated by the square foot and counted upstairs and downstairs which seemed like a scam to me since I don’t have a two story house I have a basement that they counted.

I had my twenty year old house done last summer.Made sure the vacuum system was completely empty before he started.
The process took about two hours and I got about a half cup of lint for my $4oo.oo. The tech left quietly without comment.

I use electrostatic filters and clean them religiously.

Little to nothing in my ducts.

I agree it's the dryer duct that needs cleaning periodically; it's not just a matter of efficiency or dirty air, but a real hazard of a house fire.

I think that duct cleaning really depends on your ducts and how dirty they are. You can get those mini camera's on a long cable for pretty cheap now.
As for the warranties - I can say from personal experience that Lennox would have denied my parts warranty on my AC if I did not have proof of yearly maintenance checks by a licensed repairman. Its explicitly mentioned in their warranty as a requirement. This would have cost me 10k if I had not had them done as I needed a completely new AC on a 5 year old system that failed.

quote:

Originally posted by Flash-LB:
I use electrostatic filters and clean them religiously.

I've lived in my current house for 30 some years and never had ducts cleaned. I've had two complete replacement units installed and both times I asked how are the ducts, are they in need of cleaning. Both times, "they look clean, save your money" I've got one of those cheep-o probes which I can snake about 10 feet and all looks good. We've got the 4" filters and I change them 2x a year when the AC company comes out for the spring/fall tune up. We get this no charge for 2 years after the new units were install, and this year I have to pay but it's about $50 and a good piece of mind for me.

Other than the drier hose, which most home owners can do themselves , I question these duct cleaning guys. If you're over sensitive and have allergies I suppose it could help.

My wife and I purchased our first house in New Jersey back in December of 1990. It was built in 1945.
The house went through a major renovation that include all new Sheetrock. It was winter so we had the heat on when ever we worked on the house, we did not live in it while we renovated the interior.

At the time I replaced the air filters every week for the first 2 months during the renovations.
Right before we moved in we installed a new air handler/AC unit.

A friend who just started a duct cleaning business recommended we clean the ducts before we move in. Since we were friends and we were one of his first customers he did it at cost.

I was amazed at the dirt/dust,dog hair and junk that came out of the system. When he was done he also sanitized the duct.

For us at the time it was right for us to do it.

With that said we have lived in our house in Florida for just over 23 years. As far as cleaning, I change filters every 30 to 40 days so I am not sure if I would have them cleaned.
The one thing I was thinking of was have the system sanitized however I do not think anyone will do it with out cleaning first.
I am not sure if I could do it my self and what I would use to sanitize it with.

It's one of the side businesses they try to sell us chimneys sweeps....

for what it worth I think depending on your system it is probably not a bad idea to do it every 5-10 years.... but it would seem replacing filters with the best ones out there probably at least twice a year is a better option.

One of the issues I have with any service business is for good or bad the employees are trained and pushed to sell / find extra work while at a customers home.

How about cleaning flex duct ? The air returns in the attic are flex duct. They have been spray foamed around the existing insulation. I am getting debris in the air filter (3 months use) and not sure if cleaning would be safe. Floor vent(rectangle) is mostly clean

quote:

but it would seem replacing filters with the best ones out there probably at least twice a year is a better option.

That school of thought is said to be not good by the experts. A too efficient filter (meaning to dense) will restrict air flow and prematurely wear out the furnace fan.

quote:

Most have no network of service providers. They simply call companies after you make a claim.
Calling until they get someone who will say they can be there today. Getting you a hack in the industry.
I know of no reputable company who will work for these people.

They'll pay $100 to multiple companies who condemn a piece of equipment. Trying to find someone who will hack it together. Before making any large payout for repair/replacement. All while leaving you with a non working system

Interesting because we found the opposite to be true on my daughters house. When we bought it we gave her an AHS warranty, it's a 25 year old home with older AC equipment.

Daughters AC stopped cooling, the AHS deductible is $100 per claim, which is basically less than any AC contractor in the area charges for a service call.

My wife has a large AC company as a customer, they agreed to come by at no charge. The lead tech explained all that was wrong, how it was an older R-22 system, nobody has that in stock, can't get it, can't be fixed, that we needed a new $12,000 system that they could install tomorrow.

What he didn't know is I was outside and heard the lead tech tell the other how he was going to explain why we needed a new system and watch him get a sale. He basically lied, pushed a sale, told me how things were wrong that I had asked about here and got good information on what to watch out for and what to look at to trouble shoot.

We called AHS, they had a service tech out that afternoon, diagnosed a tiny leak, refilled the system with the R-22 and it's been running fine and cooling ever since.

So, not all warranty service people are thieves or low level techs, some are honest small businesses with good people, and we got an interesting look into my wife's clients business practices...


As to the OP's question, Imagine an older system that hasn't been cleaned, or if you have pets it's at least a good idea to have the returns cleaned. In our system it's a single filter at the Unit, the returns would get airborne dust or dander, and they might benefit.

quote:

Originally posted by 220-9er:
I would not only not do the cleaning, I'd ditch the periodic checks by techs and just change the filters myself.

There is very little to service/checking to do as long as the system is functioning and installed correctly.

Exactly. Have always done our own filter changes and the only duct cleaning is shoving a vacuum down a register vent to get the crap that fell in and to find what was lost. Also, yearly I vacuum and clean the inside of the furnace control and burner areas (mostly what the techs do) and take photos to look at on my computer. Once I replaced the igniter that was not hard to do as well as an inducer.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
The high school I attended sold elevator keys to the freshman so they could skip the stairs. Only problem was there was no elevator in the building.

I'm kind of surprised that this was not an ADA violation.

quote:

Originally posted by 6guns:

quote:

but it would seem replacing filters with the best ones out there probably at least twice a year is a better option.

That school of thought is said to be not good by the experts. A too efficient filter (meaning to dense) will restrict air flow and prematurely wear out the furnace fan.

Yes and no.

Yes, using a 1 inch (3/4 actual size) high efficient (restrictive) filter which is undersized (normally the case) will cause major issues. Such as low airflow, leading to high operating temps and high static pressures.
High temps causes multiple issues like bad limits, inducers, heat exchangers, etc.
High static will shorten the life of the blower motor, blower wheel, etc.
And you still have low airflow, causing other related issues, freezing coils, loss of efficiency, poor circulation, etc.

No, a properly sized media filter (3-5" thick) will protect the system by keeping it clean and operating at peak efficiency.

Keeping the temperatures within specs, not adding stress to parts, while maintaining efficiency.
Lower static pressures, again less stress to the blower system.
System is clean to allow for proper cooling of the blower motor, transfer of heat from the heat exchanger, better transfer of heat to and from an air conditioning/HP coil, etc.

**Anyone not installing media filters on today's equipment is doing a great disservice to their customers.

We bought a house that was built in 1996. The previous owners were worthless when it came to home maintenance. They didn't even bother to change the air filter before showing the house. We gutted the home down to the drywall, scraped the textured ceilings and skim coated both the ceiling and the walls. You can imagine the dust. We asked the HVAC contractor who replaced the heat pump for a recommendation to clean the duct work. He would not recommend anyone and said most were ripoffs. If we decided to do it he said get one who would cut a hole in the plenum and use a camera to show us the before and after. He said if we just wanted to clean dust and debris out we could buy a dryer vent brush. We got one off Amazon called Holikme 40 Feet Dryer Vent Cleaner Kit. Of course it's made in China but had decent reviews. It uses a drill to rotate a 40 ft fiberglass rod and brush. The brush is smaller than ductwork but the way it rotates it hits most of the wall. We stuck it down each vent and held a shop vac in the opening to suck all the stuff the brush knocked loose. Quite a bit came out. We felt it was worth $30 and a couple hours.

quote:

No, a properly sized media filter (3-5" thick) will protect the system by keeping it clean and operating at peak efficiency.

I think this is what we need to change on our system, we use the 1 inch that goes into the unit and it's very hard to change, the flap cover is difficult to close and the filter is darn near impossible to remove.

We would have to have it put into the return that comes down beside the unit, it goes to a box built in under the unit and up through the bottom of the air handler.

Do you have a recommendation, I've read the Honewell F100/F200 are good options, what about Aprilaire, are there other brands that don't require you to buy filters from the manufacturer to fit properly, that's an issue with the Bryan air handler, finding alternative easy to fit filters at Lowes/HD or Ace is impossible. I've found them online.

Me with a background in managing public buildings and their HVAC, I say absolutely...Yes. Not necessarily yearly or... but at home, inspect and respond.

Keep an eye on your return grill and just inside it.