Air Duct Cleaning Services in Toronto

Why we will tell you not to bother

The EPA's position on duct cleaning is that it has no demonstrated health benefit as routine maintenance, and that it is worth doing where there is visible mould, evidence of vermin, or enough debris to be released into the rooms. That is also our position, and it is unusual in this trade because it costs money to hold.

What that leaves is a short list of real reasons, and in Toronto the most common by a distance is renovation. Drywall dust goes everywhere and it stays in a system for years. The second is vermin, which basement ductwork in an older house is exposed to. The third is a smell, and a smell is almost always damp near the coil rather than dirt in the branches.

The ducts here are in basements rather than attics, which changes the job. It is more accessible, so repairs and sealing are cheaper than in a house with everything overhead — and a duct leaking into an unheated basement is heating a space nobody uses, every hour the furnace runs, all winter.

The two things most Ontario houses genuinely neglect are not the ducts at all. They are the dryer vent, which is a fire risk and takes an hour, and the HRV in the basement, which almost nobody has ever opened and which stops ventilating a house built deliberately airtight. Both are cheap. Both matter more than a routine duct clean.