Duct Cleaning in Kankakee, IL
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Eight months of heating pushes dust through your ducts
Your furnace runs October through May here, close to eight months of the year. Every time it fires, air moves through the ductwork and carries along whatever has settled inside it. On winter nights averaging 20°F, the furnace cycles on and off often through the night, and each cycle pushes more of that buildup into the air you breathe.
Kankakee County has seen 9 winter storms and 99 damaging wind events over the past ten years, and outages come with that kind of weather. When the power drops and the furnace stops and starts back up, it stirs the dust sitting in the ducts instead of just moving clean air. Over years of that, the buildup does not stay put. It ends up in the rooms you live in.
- 8 months
- October through May, your furnace pushes air through your ducts
- 3 months
- June through August, your air conditioner does the same
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
- How often should air ducts be cleaned?
- There's no fixed schedule that fits every house. If the ducts are sealed well and the filter gets changed on time, they can go a long stretch without needing it. If anyone in the house has allergies, or pets are shedding into the return vents, cleaning them sooner makes sense.
- Is air duct cleaning worth it?
- It depends on what's actually in the ducts. If you can see dust coming out of the vents, or there's been construction or water damage in the house, cleaning them is worth doing. If the ducts look fine and nobody in the house is bothered by the air, you're probably not gaining much by paying to have them cleaned.
- What does air duct cleaning involve?
- A contractor connects a vacuum to the duct system to pull it under negative pressure, then uses brushes or air whips to knock dust and debris off the inside walls so it gets pulled into the vacuum instead of blown back into the house. The supply and return vents, the main trunk lines, and the coil area near the furnace all get gone over. The furnace blower and coil are usually cleaned at the same time, since dirt sitting there can end up back in the ducts anyway.