Cleaning equipment and open floor register with text overlay that reads Clean your Home's Air Ducts

These unproblematic steps explicate how to make clean your habitation'southward air ducts yourself. You'll remove grit, pet hair, mold, and other allergens in minutes.

Equipment for cleaning your own air ducts to remove dust and mold

Steps to Make clean Your Abode's Air Ducts and Vents

Before y'all get started cleaning your ducts, there are a few safety tips you should keep in mind. These tips are essential for your condom and also to protect your heating and cooling organisation.

  • Always turn your home's thermostat off earlier you begin to clean your air ducts.
  • Have a helper nearby if you lot need to climb a ladder or step-stool to reach high wall vents or ceiling registers.
  • Yous may also want to wear eye protection to shield your eyes from falling grit or debris when working with overhead air vents.

STEP 1: Get together Your Equipment and Materials

Y'all need a transmission dryer vent brush plus warm soapy water, cleaning cloths, and a vacuum cleaner with a grit brush attachment to clean your air ducts. You volition also need a screwdriver to open up wall or ceiling vents and a step-stool to attain them.

Step 2: Remove and Clean Your Vent Covers

Floor registers are easy to remove. Usually, you tin can lift them. For wall registers, utilise a screwdriver. If your vent encompass is extremely dusty, use your vacuum'due south dust zipper to clean the surface before removing it. Wash the vent encompass in a sink of warm, soapy water. Scrub as needed, but accept intendance not to damage the finish. If they're metallic, you can salve time by popping them into the summit rack of your dishwasher for a quick wheel.

STEP 3: Clean Within Your Duct

Insert the vent castor into the duct as far every bit you tin. Rotate the brush and run it along the duct's walls. Employ a light touch in crinkly Mylar flex ducts, which are easily damaged. If you lot take exposed ductwork, similar in a basement, tapping it a few times before can help loosen debris, too. Finally, remove the castor and insert your vacuum cleaner's hose equally far as you can to make clean up the debris. If you lot have a shop vac, you can get further in your duct system using an extension hose.

Stride four: Wipe the Residuum

After vacuuming, wipe the vent's interior clean with a damp microfiber cloth. Rinse and change rags as needed. Spray an all-purpose cleaner on the material before wiping it to make clean stubborn dirt. Likewise, be sure to clean the surface area effectually the duct, including the floor or wall.

STEP 5: Finish Up

Put the clean vent cover back on and turn on your thermostat. Run your arrangement for 30 minutes to filter any hidden dust loosened during cleaning. After thirty minutes are up, change your system's air filter to eliminate all the extra grit information technology nerveless for you.

Why Do This Yourself?

When forced air from your HVAC flows through ducts and vents filled with dust, clay, and pet hair, that droppings spreads throughout your domicile. Clean those ducts, and you'll accept cleaner indoor air — and that means you'll run across less grit, likewise. Depending on what'south been hiding in your system, you lot also might find fewer odors and reduced allergy symptoms.

Practise You Demand to Hire Professionals to Clean Your Air Ducts?

Should you phone call a duct-cleaning company to do this task? In curt: no. Companies claim that y'all need a pro to clean your ducts because they use specialized equipment. What they're referring to involves sending pressurized h2o through your duct system to flush out the gunk.

The problem is that air ducts develop gaps over time, which means pressurized water gets into your walls. Once in that location, it causes mold and mildew. This is the verbal situation the U.South. Ecology Protection Agency (EPA) warns against when it says that "preventing water and clay from entering the system is the almost effective way to prevent contamination."

How Oftentimes Should Y'all Clean Your Air Ducts?

Follow these steps to clean your home'southward air ducts at least twice a twelvemonth. If someone in your dwelling has indoor allergies, or if you accept a lot of pets, practise it each season. Yous tin utilise this method to clean cold air returns, too. And always alter your filter subsequently you've cleaned your ducts.