Forced Air Furnaces: look at what you may be breathing!

[wallie_x]

YECH!!
Unretouched photo of 30 year old ducting pulled out of cracker box tract home built 1968.
If you have an older home with metal ducting, just look at what you might be breathing in these cold winter nights!

[Omardeth]

you found one of the newest nitche markets thats booming . duct cleaning ......

[Cyclone2]

Generally the Cold Air Return Ducts have all the crap in them because they suck in unfiltered air from the home. Hot air ducts should be [are] filtered at the furnace, therefore have much reduced levels.

I cleaned out an air duct in a 75 yr old farm house, -boy you could have made sweaters with the lint/dust that came out of there, it was about 3/4 inch thick

[M_Six]

Our return ducts have some crap in them, but the heating/air system has an electrostatic filter, so we get really clean air from it. It's amazing how little dust we have in the house. It was bad before we installed the electrostatic filter.

[wallie_x]

The last two fall seasons my wife and I noticed that just as we started to use our furnace (mostly at night) that we would all wake up with stuffy noses.
This year it got cold so we used it for a while, same results. But then we had a warm spell and we started waking up and our noses were clear. It wasn’t just the ‘season’ so the only culprit was obvious. It only cost $300 to get it done so.....
I thought it would be bad...but not that bad. The 'Y' duct cause an area of lower pressure so heavier particles that are suspended drop out of the forced air flow, that’s why I chose that picture.