If you didn’t know your air ducts need cleaning until now, that’s normal. Not many people understand the importance of air duct cleaning in Daytona Beach until their house starts to smell or they try many other expensive fixes.
Before your house starts smelling bad, there are a few ways to know that your air ducts need to be cleaned. So save yourself some money, and an unpleasant-smelling house, by looking out for the signs below.
Signs Your Air Ducts Need To Be Cleaned
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Dust
This is an easy warning sign to brush off, but if your house is always dusty despite regular cleaning, it could be one of the first signs that your air ducts need to be cleaned. Another more evident warning sign is if you notice a puff of dust when you turn on your HVAC system.
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Mold
Any sign of mold should be a major warning sign that there’s a problem. Unfortunately, if you find mold in your air ducts, you’re going to be faced with a much bigger problem. Very rarely will mold stay in one place and if it’s already in your air ducts, you’ll have to search the rest of your house for mold.
If you’re fortunate enough that the mold is only in your air ducts, then you’ll spend much less to fix it. Of course, you’ll need to get a professional in to thoroughly clean and sanitize them, but it will stop the problem from growing.
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Smell
Air ducts that need to be cleaned can smell bad. If you notice your house has a strange odor, but you can’t find the source of it, it could very well be your air ducts. One way to test this is by getting up close to the vent and sniffing. If you’d rather not, however, you can call a technician in to examine your air ducts as well.
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Increasing Costs
Air ducts can collect a lot of dust, dirt, and even pet fur over time. After a while, if they aren’t cleaned out, they can become so dirty that they aren’t able to run as efficiently. It becomes more difficult to move air, and as such, your HVAC system has to use more energy, thus increasing your energy bill.
While it’s normal for your bill to increase or decrease a little bit depending on the season, it should stay relatively the same as the year before. If your bill is much higher than last year, though, it could be a sign that your air ducts need some help.
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Clogged Air Filters
Switching out air filters occasionally is a normal part of owning an HVAC system. However, if you notice that they need to be switched out more and more because they get clogged quicker, you should consider it a sign to clean your air ducts.
Typically, you’ll want to replace air filters every few months. However, if you’re switching them roughly every week, there’s probably a lot of dirt in your air ducts that need to be taken care of.
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Bad Airflow
Again, dirty air ducts won’t run as efficiently. While rising energy costs is one sign of lowered efficiency, another sign can be bad airflow. If you notice that certain rooms in your house have better or worse airflow than other rooms, you should contact a technician to come take a look at your air ducts.
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Recent Construction or Renovation
If your home is newly built or you’ve recently finished a renovation project, you should clean your air ducts. Even if none of the other signs are present yet, construction work kicks up a lot of dust, and that dust is going to go right into your air ducts.
Rather than wait for other signs or problems to arise, getting your air ducts cleaned right after a project ensures that you aren’t waiting around for something to happen. You won’t have to worry about them, and you won’t be faced with any of the other problems mentioned above.
Conclusion
You don’t need to clean your air ducts every month, but you should ensure they get taken care of fairly regularly. Don’t try to clean them yourself, though, as this can harm your HVAC system and be dangerous for you. Instead, call our trusted professionals to do it, and you’ll be sure that the job is done well.