Duct Cleaning and Indoor Air Quality in Smithville, ON

From November to March, most homes here stay shut. Your furnace moves the same air through the same ducts, day after day, and very little fresh air comes in.

That is when most people start asking us about duct cleaning, filters and humidifiers.

This page covers all three. It also covers the part most companies leave out: which of these makes a real difference to your air, and which does not.

When Duct Cleaning Is Worth Doing

Sometimes duct cleaning is worth doing. Often it is not.

In 2010 a researcher reviewed the scientific studies on duct cleaning, and the National Research Council of Canada holds that review. He was looking for proof that cleaning ducts improves the air in a home. He found no studies in real houses that linked dirty ducts to poor air quality. He also found that a home can have more particles in the air after a cleaning than before it, because the work stirs the dust up. (1)

So if a company tells you a duct clean will fix your allergies, no study backs that up.

We clean ducts when one of these is true:

• Renovation or construction work has spread drywall dust through the house
• You can see mold inside the ducts
• There are rodent droppings, nesting material or insects in the ducts
• We are about to install a new furnace or heat pump
• Something is blocking a duct and one room gets no air
• You have just moved in and do not know what the last owner did

If none of those describe your house, change your filter more often instead. That will do more for your air than a duct clean, and it costs far less. We would rather tell you that than take your money.

Signs Your Ducts Actually Need Cleaning

Most of the warning signs you read online describe normal household dust. These five point to a real problem.

Dust blowing out of the vents when the furnace starts. Not a thin layer on the grille. Dust you can watch coming out into the room.

Mold around a vent, or a musty smell that gets stronger when the fan runs.

Rodent droppings, nesting material or insects inside the ducts.

A vent that has stopped blowing air. Something is probably blocking that duct.

Recent renovation work. Drywall dust spreads through the whole house.

If all you can see is a thin layer of dust on a vent cover, wipe it off and change your filter. Your ducts are fine.

Duct Cleaning

When a duct clean is the right job you need, this is what we clean.

We clean the supply ducts that carry warm air to your rooms, the return ducts that carry it back to the furnace, and every vent and register in the house. Not only the parts you can reach from the basement.

Older Smithville homes are where we find the worst build-up. Many still have the ducts that went in when the house was built. A house can change owners three or four times and nobody opens them once.

Most people book this in September or March, when they are switching between heating and cooling. That is a sensible time to do it.

→ More on what a duct clean actually involves

Dryer Vent Cleaning

A blocked dryer vent is a fire risk. That makes this a different job from everything else on this page.

Your dryer pushes hot, damp air through a pipe to the outside wall. Lint collects inside that pipe. Once enough builds up, the hot air cannot get out, and the heat stays in the pipe that could cause a fire.

Book your dryer vent cleaning when this applies: clothes that need two cycles to dry, a dryer that is hot to touch, or lint gathering around the vent outside.

Rural houses often have a longer pipe run to the outside wall, and a longer pipe collects more lint. We recommend a more frequent cleaning to lower the risk of dryer fires.

Ductwork Repair, Sealing and Installation

You can measure what leaking ducts cost you. You cannot measure what dusty ducts cost you. That is the difference between this job and a duct clean.

When a duct leaks, air escapes into a crawl space or a wall instead of reaching the room. You paid to heat that air, and it never gets to you.

Around Smithville, the usual cause is an addition or a finished basement. Someone built the room, and nobody ran ducts into it. You feel the result every winter, in the room that never gets warm.

We inspect ducts, repair them, seal the joints, and run new ducts to rooms that were added later and never connected properly.

→ More on inspecting and repairing your ductwork

Air Filtration

If you do one thing for the air in your house, do this one.

A better filter, changed more often, traps more dust, pollen and pet hair before it reaches your rooms. It also costs a fraction of anything else on this page.

There is no single right time interval to change your filter. Natural Resources Canada says to check your owner’s manual, because it depends on your system. (2) A house with three dogs on a gravel road needs a new filter far more often than a town house with no pets.

Farm properties out toward West Lincoln go through filters fastest. That is worth knowing before you buy a year’s supply at once.

→ More on the filters that catch what circulates

Air Purification

A filter traps particles as the air passes through it. A purifier works on what is too small for a filter to catch.

We install purification that runs with your existing furnace and ducts, rather than a plug-in unit that only treats one room.

It is worth looking at if someone in the house has asthma or allergies, or if you heat with a wood stove.

→ More on whole-home air purification options

Humidifiers

Winter dries out the air inside your house from November through March.

Health Canada recommends keeping the relative humidity in your home between 30 and 50 percent. (3) Relative humidity is how much moisture the air is holding, compared with the most it could hold at that temperature.

Below 30 percent you get static shocks, cracked wood trim and door frames, dry skin and a sore throat that will not clear.

A whole-home humidifier connects to your furnace and holds the level steady on its own. This is easier than refilling a portable unit twice a day, for every room in your house. You’ll notice and enjoy more comfort during the winter.

Most people notice the problem in January and call us the following autumn to fix it.

→ More on adding a humidifier to your system

Dehumidifiers

Damp is the opposite problem, and around West Lincoln it is almost always the basement.

We see this most in older Grimsby and Beamsville homes, where stone or block basement walls let damp through from the soil outside.

The same 30 to 50 percent range for humidity applies. (3) At above 50 percent humidity levels you get mold, musty smells, and water forming on the inside of your windows.

If you struggle to keep the humidity level below 50 percent, give us a call to assess the issue. We’ll provide you with the right solution.

→ More on controlling damp in a Niagara summer

HRV and ERV Ventilation

If your house feels stuffy, ventilation is the fix. A duct clean will not do it.

A heat recovery ventilator brings fresh air in from outside and pushes stale air out. As the two streams pass each other inside the unit, most of the heat moves from the outgoing air into the incoming air, so you keep the heat you already paid for. An energy recovery ventilator does the same and manages moisture as well.

Most newer Ontario homes already have an HRV. (5) In older houses we fit them afterwards, and they often solve a stuffiness problem the owner could never explain.

A well-sealed, well-insulated house needs more ventilation, not less. Sealing a house up without adding fresh air is how you end up with stale air and water on the windows.

What Affects the Cost of Duct Cleaning

We do not put prices on a website, because the price depends on your house, and these five things:

The size of the system. More ducts and more vents mean more time onsite.

How many furnaces. Some houses here have two.

Access. Finished basements and tight crawl spaces slow the work down.

What we find. Mold or mice make it a different job from dust. We tell you before we start, not after.

Whether we clean the dryer vent at the same time. Usually worth doing, since we are already there.

September and March are our busiest months for this. Booking in any other month is normally faster to schedule.

What Actually Improves the Air in Your Home

If you want the short version:

Change your filter more often, and buy a better one. The cheapest thing on this list and the most effective.

Keep the humidity between 30 and 50 percent. (3) Too dry in winter or too damp in summer are both fixable.

Remove moisture in the room where it is made. Run the bathroom fan during a shower, and the kitchen fan while you cook.

Bring fresh air in with a system, not a window. An HRV or ERV, not an open window in February.

Deal with the source. Pets, smoking, damp, and shoes at the door.

Service the system. Natural Resources Canada suggests having gas and propane furnaces and boilers serviced at least every two years. (4)

We can help with four of the six. The other two are yours to do.

If you are not sure what your house needs

Call us and describe what you are dealing with: dust, damp, dry air, or a smell you cannot place. We will tell you what is likely causing it, and whether it is something we should be selling you at all.

We are TSSA certified, family-run since 2014, and rated 5.0 on Google. You can trust us for everything we look after in a Niagara home across Smithville and the towns nearby.

References

1. Sultan, Z. M., Is ventilation duct cleaning useful? A review of the scientific evidence, Indoor Air, Vol. 20, Issue 6, pp. 445–457, December 2010, via National Research Council Canada, nrc-publications.canada.ca
2. Natural Resources Canada, Guide to maintaining your home heating and cooling system, natural-resources.canada.ca
3. Health Canada, Improve indoor air quality in your home, canada.ca
4. Natural Resources Canada, Keeping the Heat In — Section 9: Operating your house, natural-resources.canada.ca
5. Natural Resources Canada, Heat Recovery Ventilators, natural-resources.canada.ca