Today’s Toronto Star has an eye-catching headline – “Next wave rolling in fast”. Showing a graph of a rising number of confirmed cases, everyone can tell that we should be more careful and alert on the present situation.
Over the weekend, we did the tire change and stocked up a bit this and that. Another thing comes up to my mind, and we usually would turn on the furnace in the coming weeks, is it now a good time to do furnace and duct cleaning? Especially that we might have a second lockdown, should we expedite stuff that we usually do in October or November?
As usual, I try to search for some answers from our best buddy, the Internet.
How often should you have your air ducts cleaned? Clean Your Ducts Every Three to Five Years. The National Air Duct Cleaners Association (NADCA) suggests cleaning your ducts every three to five years.
https://www.dust-doctors.com/blog/entryid/75/how-often-should-you-have-your-ducts-cleaned
When to clean your furnace? The simple answer, provided by our senior furnace cleaning technicians with decades of experience is a cleaning every two years. https://albertahomeservices.com/home-guide/when-to-clean-your-furnace-and-ducts/
What about now that we have COVID-19?
The National Air Duct Cleaning Association (NADCA) recommends cleaning air ducts once every 3 to 5 years. However, in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, more frequent cleaning is advisable. https://ontarioductcleaning.ca/importance-of-clean-ducts-to-fight-infection-covid-19-update/
Not long ago, our Rogers’ discounts expired, so we called the service representative up and asked for something better. They replied that now there are some new packages with a better deal. However, for the safety of their technicians, they could not send people over until the epidemic is over.
So, we have to observe social distancing everywhere; we have curbside pickup, work from home, online schooling, etc. Once we ordered some pizza, the delivery guy dropped the pizza and jumped back a few feet away in an exaggerated way. Well, is it safe to ask someone to enter the house to perform duct cleaning? There must be all sorts of government guidelines that duct cleaning companies need to comply. Still, we can only assume that they will follow.
The Washington Post has an interesting article. “Considering having your air ducts cleaned? Think again.” That’s one lengthy article, but it worths a read. “Although it intuitively makes sense to clean ductwork — after all, you dust and clean the rest of your house — the fact is dust that settles in your ventilation system generally stays where it is, unlikely to become airborne unless disturbed. Under most circumstances, the dust is inert and harmless, and stirring it up with cleaning equipment actually creates bigger issues.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/home/considering-having-your-air-ducts-cleaned-think-again/2019/01/28/cb5c14b4-1393-11e9-b6ad-9cfd62dbb0a8_story.html
Somewhere near the end of the article, it writes that “Frequently changing air filters is the best way to keep dust, allergens and other particles out of your home.” That’s some excellent advice, so we bought a few furnace filters from Rona this morning. There are only a few left on the shelf. Usually, after a few weeks, the cheap affordable ones would be all sold out, only those that are more expensive would still be available.
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