Air Duct Cleaning in Palo Alto, CA

Frequently Asked Questions

My Eichler had radiant floor heat originally and the ducts were added later. Can those even be cleaned?

Usually yes, but the approach is different from a conventional house. Retrofit ducting in a flat-roof Eichler gets squeezed into a shallow roof cavity or run outside to a packaged unit, which means long exposed runs, flex duct with tight bends, and few access points. We work from the registers and whatever access the installer left, and we check the exterior runs for crushed sections, torn outer jacket, or sagging low spots where dust settles. On some of these systems the honest answer after inspection is that a section is damaged enough that cleaning it is treating a symptom. We'll tell you that rather than clean around it.

There's a teardown going up next door and my house is full of dust. Should I wait until they're done?

If the framing and drywall work is still ahead, waiting is often the smarter call. Concrete and drywall dust will keep finding its way into your returns for months. That said, drywall dust is fine and abrasive and sits in the blower and on the coil, so if your system is already running rough or you're seeing grit on the supply registers, cleaning now and again at the end of the build is reasonable. We'll look at where the construction is in its schedule and give you a straight recommendation either way.

What usually turns out to be wrong in older Palo Alto homes?

In the 1920s-30s Spanish Revival and bungalow stock, the most common finding is original gravity-furnace ductwork still in service: oversized round trunks in the crawlspace, converted to forced air at some point, often with original joints that have loosened. Air moves slowly through those large trunks, so debris settles rather than getting carried along. We also find crawlspace duct with disconnected boots, rodent activity, and insulation that has deteriorated and is being pulled into the airstream. In the Eichler-era homes it's more often crushed or kinked flex and exterior runs that have degraded in the weather.

Why does my system seem worse every spring?

The mature street-tree canopy and the vegetation along the San Francisquito Creek corridor push pollen loads up noticeably in spring. If your return is undersized or the filter is a cheap flat panel, that load gets past it and lands in the duct and on the coil. Cleaning helps, but the lasting fix is usually a better filter and sealing the obvious leaks on the return side so the system stops drawing unfiltered air from the crawlspace or roof cavity. We'll point out what's actually feeding the problem.