Every city’s got its little idiosyncrasies.
Miami’s got key lime pie and humidity.
L.A. got palm trees and celebrities, year round.
And Portland? Well, it’s a hip city, with great housing, the Portland Trail Blazers, and…oh yeah, the winters are wet!
And, while that makes for great reading weather, it’s not as great for your ventilation system.
In today’s article, we’ll be looking at the effects of Portland’s notoriously wet winter on your home, and how air duct cleaning can help to prevent them.
So, without any further delay, let’s get ready to get wet!
Wet, Wet, Wet
Mold forms in air ducts when they get wet, the same as any other enclosed, warm space. The air you’re breathing flows through these ducts, meaning mold spores in your house are potentially harmful to you and your family.
In a city like Portland, where winter rainfall has topped 45 inches in recent years, this can be a real problem.
To make matters worse, air duct cleaning in an insulated system is hard to do effectively when the insulation gets moldy. Typically, when this does happen, the insulation itself needs to be replaced, entirely, which is a pain.
Air duct cleaning needs to be handled by a professional with the right equipment.
Certain steps have to be taken to make sure you aren’t just spreading the mold around. Professional technicians vent spores out of the home, covering furniture to protect it. Lastly, access holes must be resealed and insulated, after cleaning.
As if the air quality wasn’t enough of a concern, moldy air ducts can lead to other problems:
- The spread of mold stains to other parts of your home.
- Bad smells.
- Contaminated food.
- Faulty or shorted electronics from moisture and spores in the air.
Air ducts are an enclosed system that needs to be properly sealed off. Because of this, EPA actually recommends not cleaning out your ducts regularly, in case you compromise it.
That being said, if you find water leaking out of you air ducts, that’s a clear sign of flooding, and the health risks become more important. Call a professional, before the effects of mold in your home air become too bad.
How to Take Care of It
HVAC services are a genius solution to this kind of problem because they make use of the system you already have installed to do your cleaning for you.
Expert technicians hook up a high-powered vacuum to your furnace, pulling the air back out through the air vents.
Then, while that’s happening, each vent and return air register is individually cleaned. The dust and mold particles are vacuumed out, leaving the entire system clean as a whistle.
Air Duct Cleaning in Portland
Truth be told, air duct flooding isn’t all that common. If you’re lucky, you’ll never have to deal with it.
But, if it were going to happen anywhere, it would happen in Portland in the winter.
Do the right thing this winter, and call us if you begin experiencing any symptoms of moldy air ducts. Our air duct cleaning services and over-the-phone quoting mean expertly cleaned ventilation systems, set up in no time.
