Duct Cleaning in Smithville, ON — What It Fixes and What It Will Not

A duct cleaning in Smithville is worth booking for some houses and not for others, and the difference is easy to state. A cleaning takes dust, pet hair and debris out of the ductwork. What it does not usually do is change the air you breathe, the airflow through your furnace, or your heating bill. This page sets out when it is the right call, what we actually open, and how to check whoever you hire.

What Duct Cleaning Removes From a Smithville Home

Dust, pet hair and the debris that has worked its way into the ducts over the years. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation is clear that a cleaning does not generally change the quality of the air you breathe or the amount of energy the system uses. (1)

The reason is worth knowing before you spend anything. Ducts are metal passages, and metal passages cannot make dust. Household dust is tracked in from outside, or it comes off skin, hair, pets, carpet, clothing and bedding. (1) Cleaning the ducts does nothing about those sources, so the dust comes back at the rate it arrived.

CMHC and the US Environmental Protection Agency both tested houses before and after cleaning in the 1990s, and found little or no measurable difference in airborne particles or in duct airflow. (1)

One thing the studies found never makes it into an advertisement. Disturbing the system stirs it up, so the particles in the air actually rise for a while during and just after the work. (4)

None of that makes it pointless. Older Smithville houses on their original ductwork are where real debris collects, and wanting it out is reasonable without any health claim attached.

When a Duct Clean Is Worth Booking

CMHC names four situations, and they are the four worth spending on. (1)

• Water got into the ducts and mold grew. Fix the water first, or it comes back. Then clean and disinfect where the mold was and clean the rest of the system. Sometimes replacing the affected section costs less than cleaning it.
• A newly built house, or an older one after major renovations. Drywall dust, fibreglass and sawdust end up in the ducts during the work and have no business being there.
• A furnace airflow problem. A cleaning can turn up a real blockage, and it is worth doing before anyone pays to replace or reroute ductwork.
• Visible debris when you look down into a return air register. If you can see it from the floor, it is there.

The second one is the most common version of this call around here. A Grimsby or Beamsville house that has just had a basement finished has months of construction dust sitting in the return ducts, and that is a clean worth booking.

What We Clean on a Duct Cleaning Visit in Smithville

There are two duct systems in your house and they get dirty at very different rates. Return ducts carry air back to the furnace. Supply ducts carry warm air out to the rooms.

CMHC’s finding is that return ducts are generally far dirtier than supply ducts, because they are larger and the air moves through them slowly. (1) Most of what we take out comes from there. We open every supply and return run and the registers in the floors and walls.

One thing separates a duct cleaner from a heating contractor, and it is CMHC’s point rather than ours. Duct cleaners affiliated with heating and air conditioning firms may be able to provide a more thorough system tune-up. (1) Cleaning the furnace blower, the air conditioning coil, the humidifier and the heat exchanger has been shown to make some difference to duct airflow. (1) The ducts on their own do not. The equipment they run through does.

We will also tell you what you can do without us. CMHC says you can clean much of the return ducting yourself with a household vacuum once the register grill is off. Expect no difference in airflow or air quality afterward. (1)

Out toward West Lincoln and Caledonia the gravel roads make a difference to how fast it all comes back, because that dust arrives on shoes and through open windows.

How to Check a Duct Cleaner Before You Book in Ontario

Start with where the call came from. The Competition Bureau names air duct cleaning in its list of services fraudsters sell by cold call and at the door. (3) Environmental Heating & Cooling does not cold-call and does not sell at the door in Smithville.

CMHC’s checklist for anyone quoting the job is short and you can use it on the phone. (1)

• Which cleaning technique do they use?
• What trade organization do they belong to?
• Can they give you references?
• Will they show you the ducts afterward, through an access panel cut into the sheet metal or with a camera put into the duct?

Then there is the one CMHC is flat about, and no competitor page in this area carries it. Do not accept an offer to spray or fog the ducts after cleaning. There are no products registered under the Pest Control Products Act in Canada for residential duct cleaning, and a proper cleaning does not need one. (1)

We do not fog ducts. If someone offers to, that is your answer about them.

What Affects Duct Cleaning Cost in Smithville

We do not publish a price, because no two duct layouts in this town are the same. Five things about the house move it:

• how many supply and return runs there are, and how many registers
• how much of the run we can reach without opening a finished ceiling
• whether the furnace, the coil and the humidifier are done at the same time
• what condition the ducts are in once they are open
• how far the property sits from the office, out toward Caledonia and West Lincoln

One piece of Ontario law belongs here, because it is about money. This service is on the province’s restricted door-to-door list. A business cannot offer or sell it at your home unless you contacted them first, and a contract signed as a result of that kind of visit is void. (2) You keep the service and owe nothing.

Duct Cleaning Questions From Smithville Homeowners

How often should I have my ducts cleaned in Smithville?

No Canadian source gives a number of years. CMHC says regular cleaning is probably unnecessary for most households, and names situations instead. (1)

Will a duct clean help my allergies?

No claim is available to us. CMHC found little or no measurable change in airborne particles after cleaning, and the federal housing handbook points at the furnace filter instead: check it monthly and change it about every three months. (1)(4)

Someone knocked on my door offering duct cleaning. Is that allowed?

Not for this service, unless you contacted them first. Duct cleaning is on Ontario’s restricted door-to-door list, and a contract that comes out of an uninvited visit is void. (2)

My ducts are clean and one room is still cold. What now?

That is a different job. Cleaning does not change where the air goes, so a cold room after a clean points at a leak, an undersized run, or a duct that was never run to that room at all.

Book a Duct Cleaning in Smithville

Call the office and tell us the age of the house, whether anything has been renovated recently, and what you can see when you lift a return register. Mike Peddle holds a TSSA Heating Contractor registration, and Environmental Heating & Cooling has been family-owned in Smithville since 2014. We cover Grimsby, Beamsville, Caledonia and West Lincoln as well.

If the ducts themselves are the problem rather than what is in them, the ductwork page covers sealing, repairing and replacing the ducts themselves.

References

1. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, About Your House — Should You Get Your Heating Ducts Cleaned?, publications.gc.ca
2. Government of Ontario, Door-to-door sales and home service contracts, ontario.ca
3. Competition Bureau Canada, Service-related scams, competition-bureau.canada.ca
4. Government of Canada, Occupant Handbook — 5.0 Indoor air quality, canada.ca