How Duct Cleaning Might Reduce Your Allergy Triggers
Keeping a clean home is important when you have allergies so your home is an oasis where you can escape from triggers you encounter outdoors and in the workplace. Even if you are meticulous about cleaning, but you might overlook the allergens building in your HVAC ducts since the ducts are out of sight and easy to forget about. You can't clean the ductwork yourself, but you can hire a cleaning service to do it for you. Here's how duct cleaning might help your allergy symptoms.
1. When You Remove the Dust, the Air Is Cleaner
If you've ever seen dust bunnies hanging from a register grille, that's a pretty good sign there is dust building inside the ducts, and that dust is spread through your home when the HVAC fan kicks on. You can clean dust from the registers, but you can't get it out of the ducts. A cleaning service has tools for cleaning ducts so the dust is lifted from the bottom, top, and sides of the ducts and pulled out of your house. You don't have to worry about dust getting into your house and making your allergies worse. Duct technicians can carefully pull out dust with a vacuum when the ducts are cleaned.
2. Rodent Allergens Are Eliminated
Even if you don't have your ducts cleaned regularly, it's good to have them cleaned after you've had a problem with rodents in the ducts. Rodent hair and urine are known allergens that could be making your symptoms worse. When the ducts are cleaned, hairs and droppings are pulled out of the ductwork. The sides of the ducts can then be cleaned and sanitized to get rid of odors and germs left behind by the rodents.
3. You'll Get Rid of Mold and Musty Odors, Too
It's possible for mold to grow inside of air ducts. The conditions have to be just right, but if there is a moisture source (e.g. a roof leak) and a food source (e.g. dust), then mold can grow. You might notice a musty smell in your home and not be able to track down any visible mold. When that happens, have your ducts checked. Otherwise, air blowing through the ducts can spread mold spores through your house and that could make your allergies worse.
When you have allergies, you rely on your HVAC system since you have to keep windows shut to keep out allergens. Changing your HVAC filter and having the unit professionally cleaned is important, but you don't want to overlook cleaning the ducts as part of your home cleaning and maintenance efforts to control your allergies.