By Climate Control Heating & Cooling, Inc.

06/12/2015 Most Kansas City homeowners don’t spend a lot of time thinking about their ducts. They tend to be hidden away in crawl spaces and attics, and even when they are exposed, there’s no way to see inside them.
But the ductwork attached to your home’s central air system is responsible for bringing heated and cooled air to all your living spaces, which means that if dust, mold, fungus or other pollutants build up inside them, it can negatively impact the air quality through your entire home. Preventing dirty ductwork is key, and you can use these five strategies to help.
Have the HVAC System Maintained Every Year Annual maintenance will keep your central air systems clean, which helps prevent air pollutants from making their way into the ductwork in the first place. It also ensures that no problems arise in the HVAC system that can lead to dirty ducts — no soot from a malfunctioning furnace, for example, and no mold or mildew encouraged by standing water left over from a faulty condensate pump.
Annual maintenance should also look at your system’s air filter, though the air filter should be changed every month by the homeowner. Air filters help prevent dirty ductwork by catching airborne particulates before they can infiltrate your system.
Keep Ducts Sealed While sealing your ducts is important for your home’s energy efficiency, it becomes especially important if you’re doing renovation or structural work on your home. If you are, sealing ducts and vents can prevent particles from passing into the ductwork, whether those particles are paint spray, dust, sawdust or bits of blown-in insulation.
During normal operation, simply making sure that your home’s ductwork doesn’t have any leaks is sufficient.
Keep Your Home Clean Household dust often originates in the home, from carpet and upholstery fibers, shed skin cells and dander, particles of food, dust mite debris and debris from other small insects. When that dust is stirred up, it can be carried into duct return vents where it gathers inside the ductwork. Keeping your home clean helps prevent dirty ductwork by ensuring that there’s less particulate pollution to be carried in the circulating air. Use a vacuum with a HEPA filter to catch as many particles as you can; many vacuums stir up more dust than they take in.
Manage Humidity in Your Home In bathroom and kitchen areas especially, humidity can be a problem. When steam from cooking or showers enters a return air vent, it can quickly condense on the cool metal walls of the ducts and become standing water. That can lead to the growth of mold, mildew, fungi, and bacteria, all of which can then be picked up by the circulating air and carried throughout your home. Proper ventilation and dehumidification can help cut down on the dangers of high humidity environments, leaving your home a healthier space overall.
Have Ductwork Inspected and Cleaned Having a professional duct inspection can help you in more ways than just preventing dirty ductwork. Catching and repairing damage in ducts and ventilationwill help you maintain your home’s energy efficiency, and making sure that ducts are correctly balanced for the size and layout of your home will ensure that you’ll be comfortable in all the living areas of your house. Professional duct cleaning can also benefit you if your ducts have become dirty. It’s much easier and safer to have ducts professionally cleaned than to attempt this as a DIY task.
For more information on preventing dirty ductwork and keeping your home healthy and comfortable, check out our ductwork solutions or call us! We’re proud to help our neighbors in the Kansas City area, and are available to answer any questions about duct design, cleaning, or maintenance you may have.

Image via Flickr by Frederick MD Publicity.