If you've recently had a mold issue in your house from a roof leak, broken water pipe, or flood, you could have hidden mold spores in your air ducts if they aren't cleaned. While you'll remove visible mold on walls or floors, there's a chance you'll have mold in your air ducts too if your HVAC was running and air from the moldy space was drawn into the ducts.
If you look in your ducts and see mold, or if you just want to make sure no mold is present and waiting to cause a problem, call an air duct cleaning service for help. Here's what they might do.
Remove Dust From The Ducts
If your ducts have never been cleaned, they may have a blanket of dust in them. It's good to get rid of the dust so it doesn't circulate through your home. However, in the case of mold, you'll want to eliminate dust since dust is a food source for mold.
Some air duct cleaning services might also clean your HVAC to get rid of the dust on the coils that might harbor mold spores. Eliminating as much dust as possible is important for cleaning the ducts and getting rid of a food source for mold.
Wash And Clean The Grilles
The grilles on the end of the ducts get coated with dust that's difficult to remove. That's because cooking oil and grease waft through the air and get pulled in the grilles, and some of the oil coats the grilles in the process. Dust sticks to the oil readily and is difficult to remove, so the air duct cleaning crew may take the grilles down and scrub them with a cleaning solution that breaks up the dust and oil.
Treat The Ducts With Mold Killer
Removing mold won't keep it from coming back. Instead, the ducts need to be treated with a mold-killing product so the mold will be gone for good. If your ducts smell moldy, they might also be treated with an odor neutralizer to eliminate traces of musty odors and other bad smells.
Work Carefully To Prevent The Spread Of Mold
Negative air pressure is used when cleaning ducts so dust and mold that are knocked loose get pulled into a vacuum hose. This eliminates the spread of dust and mold spores throughout your home. Duct cleaning isn't messy, but it can take a long time. The air duct cleaning service is careful to clean up after themselves and make sure anything that was disturbed, such as the HVAC and grilles, are returned to their proper condition.
Reach out to an air duct cleaning contractor to learn more.