Vent/air Duct Cleaning - Seeking Advice and Recommendation

Our place will be 100 yrs old in April. We also have ducts. But they are not 100 yrs old. Before going through with having someone come out--poking holes, take the registers off if you can and look inside the vents. Use a flashlight and mirror if necessary. There is a good chance the registers are just filthy from being within reach of everyday things. Ours can get kind of icky with kids but we take them off every year before turning on the heat, clean them off and vacuum the vents ourselves. We flick a flashlight in to see how the ducts actually look. You should be able to also look in your basement if that is where the duct work if. There should be vents down there as well. If they look really nasty, then I would call someone out.

Our house was built in the late 60s and we had the ducts cleaned 2 years ago. We got a recommendation from a neighbor for the company. They are mainly a carpet installation company but they have a special truck with attachments that go inside the vents. They even had a remote cam inside the vents so we could watch the work being done! It took a few hours but we noticed a big difference in our son's allergies right away. We are considering having them cleaned again next summer.

We live in a 115 year house in Arlington Heights and just ours cleaned last year when we moved in. When they were done, we had eight huge garbage bags full of dust and debris that they had cleaned. It was pretty gross. We used Royal Air Duct Cleaning. I believe they work all over Chicagoland. We were very happy with them and have since used them to service our HVAC as well. website is royalairductcleaning.com We found them on Angie's list.

Angie's List, yellow pages, friends who know a good AC man. ask. ask. ask. call a company and ask them. call several different AC companies and ask. It is not a big deal to get your ducts cleaned....go on and do it and then you won't have to do it later. If you have a fire place, the chimney probably needs to be cleaned as well. Have had both of these things done when we first moved in and that was 15 years ago....have not had to do it since. Explore your options. You can do it!!! It is not rocket science, there is little someone can do to ruin the ducts and chimney. Any company will work...ask your mom and dad...your grandma, grandpa, uncle, aunt, brother, sister, ask at your church. there has to be someone in your neck of the woods who can help you not on mamapedia..good lord!: )