Duct Cleaning in Great Falls, MT
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Ten months of heating pushes a lot of air through your ducts
Your furnace runs September through June here, which means the blower is moving air through your ductwork most of the year. Dust, pet hair, and whatever else settles in a house gets pulled in and pushed back out, load after load, for ten months straight.
Cascade County sees its share of wind, with 134 damaging wind events recorded over the past ten years. Wind that strong works dust and debris into a house around doors, windows, and vents, and that ends up in the return air and settling inside the ducts. Over years of heating season after heating season, that buildup narrows the airflow your system depends on to heat the house evenly.
- 10 months
- September through June, your furnace pushes air through your ducts
- 1 months
- July through July, your air conditioner does the same
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
- How often should air ducts be cleaned?
- There is no fixed schedule that fits every home. Clean them sooner if you can see dust building up at the vents, if someone in the house has new or worsening allergies, or if you have had rodents or a water leak near the ductwork. Homes here run the furnace from September through June, so ducts see airflow most of the year, but that still does not mean cleaning on a set yearly schedule.
- Is air duct cleaning worth it?
- It depends on what is going on in the ducts. If there is visible dust, debris, or mold, or if the system has been open to construction dust or pests, cleaning clears that out and can ease breathing for people sensitive to dust. If the ducts look and smell fine and nobody in the house has unexplained symptoms, cleaning is unlikely to change much. A contractor can look inside the ducts with a camera and tell you whether there is enough buildup to justify the work.
- What does air duct cleaning involve?
- A contractor connects a vacuum to the duct system, then agitates the inside of each duct with brushes or air tools to knock loose dust and debris, which the vacuum pulls out. This covers the supply and return ducts, the grilles and registers, and usually the coil and blower housing. The furnace filter gets replaced as part of the job, since it is what actually keeps the air clean going forward.