SERVPRO Provides Rocky Hill and Knoxville Area Homeowners with Professional Duct Cleaning

6/10/2019 (Permalink)

Why SERVPRO for Improved Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) in Knoxville? We Offer Advanced Training and Equipment for Duct Cleaning!

The Many Benefits of Air Duct Cleaning in Knoxville Area Properties  

Indoor air quality is an often-overlooked condition within both homes and commercial properties throughout the Rocky Hill area. While many might choose to correct problems as they find them, without a thorough inspection of your air distribution system and knowing where to look to find problem areas, you might allow a compromised system to continue to run despite the spread of dust, debris, dander, and other potential contaminants. The wise choice is to allow accredited professionals to conduct the service.  Our SERVPRO Team is accredited by both the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC) and the National Air Duct Cleaners Association. We can inspect the system and begin the work to clean it out should a buildup of contaminates be discovered. 

Benefits of Air Duct Cleaning 

Despite the threats to a property and its occupants from a compromised duct system, home and business owners from South Knoxville and beyond Rocky Hill still debate the merits of full-service cleaning of their HVAC components and air duct system. Understanding the full measure of benefits of duct cleaning can help you to make the best choice for yourself and your property. 

Air Quality 

Among the most pressing of concerns with a compromised HVAC system is the effect it has on the air quality throughout your property. Since this is the same air that occupants breathe, a higher concentration of dust, debris, mold spores, and potential contaminants could ultimately allow for more illness, allergic reactions, and compromised health. Most HVAC systems do not have sufficient filtration to remove these contaminants, nor sufficient air movement to prevent them from accumulating in the ducts. So they are recirculated through the home to be inhaled by the occupants, and/or accumulate in the duct system.  Accumulation of debris and contaminants in the ducts can allow for microbial growth, especially if there is any moisture present.  Quite often, the exterior air is cleaner than the encapsulated indoor air.

Efficiency of Your HVAC System 

Another consideration that property owners in Knoxville should make about potential throttling of their air ducts is the efficiency of the HVAC system at this point. Even disregarding the potential health hazards that could exist, those with unclean duct networks can expect their air distribution systems to work harder to move air through the property and to keep it conditioned to a specific temperature. This throttling in particular areas of your ventilation system can ultimately lead to higher utility costs, until the air pathway is cleaned. The added strain on the overall HVAC system can also lead to its premature breakdown resulting in expenses not anticipated.

Less Constant Housekeeping in Rocky Hill

One of the lesser considered aspects of duct networks with a high concentration of dust and particulates is the effect it has on a property’s cleaning requirements. The dust and debris can find its way into the environment through forced air system, and the weight of some of these particles causes them to fall onto surfaces and materials nearby quickly. Property owners can expect to expend more resources in dusting and cleaning horizontal surfaces, and areas surrounding floor and ceiling vents when their HVAC system requires service. SERVPRO helps eliminate the "dust bunnies."

Essential Tools for Cleaning Your System 

No job gets done by our SERVPRO professionals without state-of-the-art equipment and practices. We constantly seek the most efficient approach to reduce our interruption of your life and to improve the overall experience for our customers. With our air duct cleaning team of technicians, we have invested in the tools that can get the jobs done effectively and quickly, making a visible difference in the cleanliness of the duct system and its components. You can expect to see multiple tools on a full-scale cleaning, but the items described below below are among the most common choices for our team of professionals.  

Borescope 

Inspection is a critical part of the work that our duct cleaning professionals perform. As accredited members of the National Air Duct Cleaners Association (NADCA), we have the training and experience to identify threats and throttling of your system anywhere it might exist. Our SERVPRO crew can also determine the severity of these conditions and whether your property requires cleaning. Our borescope cameras allow us to navigate even intricate duct systems to inspect each portion thoroughly, from the air handler through the manifold to all registers.

Negative Air Machines 

We strive to limit the interruption of your life, and in cleaning duct systems, that means limiting the spread of dust, debris, mold spores, and contaminants throughout the cleaning process. Our professionals utilize advanced equipment like our negative air machines, capable of moving high air volume of at a significant vacuum, to draw air through the ducts into multiple onboard HEPA filters. Filtering air within the ducts can cause less dust, dander, pollen, dirt, house mites, and debris for our professionals to overcome with our cleaning tools, and less of these particulates that get expelled into the environment during the cleaning process. In extreme cases of duct cleaning, we can partition rooms of the home to inhibit the circulation of particulates further. This effort, using 6 mil plastic sheeting, is beneficial after a house fire has deposited heavy soot by isolating the affected areas of the home to prevent it from spreading and further degrading the indoor air quality (IAQ.) 

Brush System 

Powered brush systems can contract and expand to fit the size and shape of ducts in homes and businesses. These powered tools can snake through the channels, knocking debris and buildup loose from the walls and crevices of the air ducts. Clothes drying vents often need this process to keep the hot air flowing to the exhaust port. In this way our SERVPRO techs help prevent fires -- just another added bonus.

Compressed Air Whips 

When a problem has existed and compounded for years within an air duct system, sediment and buildup can be too much for brushes, and also there are corners and other areas inaccessible to the brush system. Whips have multiple rubber tips that can thrash wildly when supplied with compressed air. By moving through the system, these extensions can remove build up in even challenging corners of the HVAC system and elbows in dryer vents.

High-Efficiency Particulate Arrestance (HEPA) Vacuums 

Once we have loosened debris and particulates throughout the conduits from the cleaning processes, we can work on removing these loose particles with our high-powered HEPA vacuums. A true HEPA filter can trap 99.97 percent of all airborne particles larger than 0.3 microns; we only use industry-leading products.

Do You Need Cleaning? 

With this information, many home and business owners throughout the Greater Knoxville area might consider their own need for duct cleaning and recovery. Every property does not require cleaning and restoration, though buildup and throttling of your system’s efficiency could happen at any time. Typically, a home requires duct cleaning every three to five years, commercial properties more often. Our SERVPRO air circulation team may not be medical doctors, but we can help "cure" a "sick building" by improving the ambient air.

So, how do you know if you need this service? 

You can start by removing floor and ceiling vents to visually inspect the small portions of the duct that become exposed when these grates are removed. Often, a compromised system can cause a collection of dust and debris against the vents and registers, which can show you almost immediately the kind of threats that have made it past your filtering system. Many property owners have taken to trusting the honest inspection process of our SERVPRO professionals as well to determine the need for air duct cleaning. Our borescope cameras can quickly navigate ducts and see the full scope of potential damages that exist. 

Whether you sense you need a cleaning or desire peace of mind, let our SERVPRO of Rocky Hill / Sequoyah Hills / South Knoxville help you. Give us a call at (865) 862-8907 for a free inspection and consultation.