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A residential attic interior with blown-in insulation on the floor, flexible silver HVAC ducts, a metal plenum box, and wooden rafters lit by light entering through a small louvered vent.

Duct Cleaning in Howell, MI

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An attic interior showing a metal air handler unit connected to flexible silver-wrapped HVAC ducts running beneath a pitched wooden roof.

Eight months of heating moves a lot of dust through your ducts

Your furnace runs October through May here, eight months out of the year. Every one of those months it pulls air through the return and pushes it back out through the same ducts, and the dust and pet hair in that air do not all make it to the filter. Some of it settles on the duct walls instead.

Winter nights here average 18°F, so the furnace is cycling on and off most of the night to keep up. Each cycle moves more air through the same ducts, and the buildup on the walls does not clear out on its own. It sits there and gets stirred back into the air every time the furnace runs.

8 months
October through May, your furnace pushes air through your ducts
3 months
June through August, your air conditioner does the same
Isometric cutaway illustration of a single-story house showing interior rooms with furniture and a network of ventilation ducts and an air handling unit running through the ceiling space.
Your ducts carry heat October through May and cooled air June through August.

NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals

How often should air ducts be cleaned?
There's no fixed schedule that fits every home. A contractor can look inside the ductwork and tell you whether there's buildup worth removing. If anyone in the house has allergies, or you've had rodents or a water leak near the ducts, have it checked sooner rather than later.
Is air duct cleaning worth it?
It depends on what's actually in your ducts. If you can see dust blowing out of the vents, or there's visible mold or debris inside, cleaning them makes sense. If the ducts look fine and nobody in the house has breathing trouble, it's not something that needs to happen on its own timeline. A contractor can look inside and tell you whether there's buildup worth removing.
What does air duct cleaning involve?
A contractor uses tools to loosen the dust and debris built up inside the ducts, then pulls it out with a vacuum system strong enough to keep it from settling back down further along the line. Each supply and return duct gets gone through, and the coil and blower housing get checked too, since debris collects there as well. The vents and grilles get cleaned as part of the job.
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