Keeping your heater clean with pre-season tune-up service protects your indoor air quality (IAQ), optimizes heating performance, and prevents mid-season breakdowns. Pre-season maintenance ensures safety and saves homeowners money. But part of maintaining your heating system is taking good care of its ductwork, too. Dirty air ducts decrease airflow and force heaters to work harder. Learn why insufficient air duct maintenance could cost you.
Diminished Heat Transfer
Trapped dirt, hair, lint, and other debris in air ducts rarely stay still. During each heating cycle, your HVAC system could push these particulates into other areas. When they break free from duct walls, they can travel onto or into your heater’s sensitive internal components. This creates buildups on burners, blower motors, and heating coils that inhibit heat transfer. As a result, your heater will have to work harder to raise the temperature of your indoor air, and it will use more energy overall.
Poor Airflow and Increased Workload
Trapped debris in your HVAC air ducts can also find its way into your furnace’s air intake valve. Not only do buildups here impact overall airflow, but they also create safety issues.
In your air ducts themselves, thick layers of dust create friction. This slows down heated air just before distribution. It forces your heater to work harder to move air and places undue stress on the blower motor.
Difficulty Maintaining Uniform Temperatures
A central heating system should create a single, uniform temperature in every room. If you have hot and cold spots throughout the building, trapped dirt in your ducting could be why. The increased friction that inhibits airflow creates bottlenecks that prevent heated air from entering every room.
Cleaning your air ducts will correct hot and cold spots. It will also reduce operational stress.
Longer and Less Effective Heating Cycles
When central heating systems struggle to create and maintain uniform temperatures, they run longer and less effective heating cycles. They can also run more of them. Cleaning air ducts eliminates bottlenecks within air distribution systems, prevents start-and-stop operation, and reduces total energy waste.
How to Keep Your Air Ducts Clean
Keeping air ducts clean starts with diligent filter maintenance. If you run your heating system with a dirty filter, collected debris can blow off this component and enter your ducts. This is why many homes have the same lint-like buildups on their HVAC system’s air vents that are commonly found on hard-working filters. For best results, inspect your standard system’s air filter monthly and replace it when light can no longer pass through it. For many households, the best replacement schedule for air filters is once every 30 to 90 days.
You can also prevent heavy buildups in your air ducts by periodically wiping down vent covers throughout your home. Clear out built-up debris behind them by unscrewing these covers and using your vacuum cleaner’s hose attachment. Regularly using a HEPA vacuum will reduce particulate matter in your indoor air.
Dirty air ducts can have as much of an impact on heating efficiency as dirty, poorly maintained heaters. Keep your air ducts clean to limit your heater’s workload, improve heat transfer, and optimize airflow. If you live in Athens, GA or a surrounding area and need duct cleaning services, make your first call to Jordan Air.
