With Fresno being California’s largest inland city, it’s little surprise that residents generate a substantial amount of air pollution every day. While individual contributions to improving the outdoor environment may seem minimal, contracting a professional to clean your ducts at home can noticeably improve indoor air quality.
Understanding the Issues
Because HVAC systems recirculate air from your living space back into your living space, typically between five and seven times a day, contamination can build up inside the ductwork. The National Air Duct Cleaners Association suggests that a typical six-room home can accumulate “… up to 40 pounds of dust… annually through everyday living.”
This pollution includes exterior contaminants that settle inside the system, as well as byproducts of normal home occupation including chemical residues, pollen, mold spores, pet dander and dust (the latter in part comprising fragments of dried food, fabric fibers and decaying dust mites and cockroaches).
Indoor air quality, or IAQ, should be a concern for all homeowners, because breathing healthy air is so important. For households with members who suffer from pulmonary illnesses and respiratory health conditions, autoimmune disorders or environmental allergies, the issues are amplified.
Energy Savings
As an aside, because your heating and cooling systems share the same ductwork, heavy contamination can cause your equipment to work harder all year round. This can increase fuel consumption and decrease system life. When you clean your ducts, you can save money as well as improve IAQ.
Professional Help
Dirty ducts do not necessarily equate to unhealthy air, but allowing the build-up of contaminants can cause serious problems over time. On the other hand, homes with efficient and well-maintained HVAC systems, with effective air filtration, likely don’t need duct cleaning more than every few years. A professional inspection can tell whether you need to clean your ducts.
Ductwork is sealed, and, to make it as unobtrusive as possible, the majority of ducting is routed through areas that are difficult to access. For these reasons, in common with the rest your HVAC system, inspections should only be carried out by a reputable, certified professional. In the Fresno area, that means Donald P. Dick Air Conditioning.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in the greater Fresno, California area about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about home air quality and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
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