Air Duct Cleaning in Sebastopol, CA

It depends on what we find, and in Sebastopol that's usually a mix. A lot of West County homes have original metal trunk lines running through a post-and-pier crawlspace, spliced into newer flex that someone ran to an addition or a converted room. The old metal is often still sound and cleans up well. The flex is what tends to fail: crushed where it passes a low attic, sagging between supports on a long run to an addition, or torn at the collar. We'll tell you plainly if a section is past cleaning and should be re-run instead, rather than cleaning something that's going to leak into the crawl anyway. Cleaning a system that's intact is worth doing. Cleaning around a collapsed duct is not.

We don't quote a flat number because Sebastopol houses rarely match each other. The things that move the price here are the number of supply runs (remodeled and added-onto homes often have more than the original floor plan suggests), whether the equipment is in a tight crawlspace or a low attic, and whether there's rodent contamination that needs handling beyond normal cleaning. A midcentury ranch with a straightforward furnace and eight or ten registers sits at the simpler end. A farmhouse with two eras of ductwork, a crawl access you have to belly-crawl through, and returns loaded with woodstove soot takes longer and costs accordingly. We walk the system first and tell you what it'll take before we start pulling grilles.

That's one of the most common calls we get out here. Fog pushes up over the Gold Ridge most summer nights and the crawlspaces under these older raised-foundation homes stay damp. Condensation forms on duct insulation, the insulation stays wet, and you get mold growth and that basement smell blowing through the registers. Sometimes it's simpler: a rodent got into a crawlspace duct and nested, which is common on rural properties with open skirting. Either way, we inspect the crawl before assuming it's just dirty ducts, because cleaning won't fix a moisture source or a hole a rat is using as a door.

Usually within a few days for normal scheduling. We cover the rural addresses too: gravel drives, properties on wells, places back off the main roads. Just let us know on the phone if the drive is long or tight, or if there's a gate, so we bring the right vehicle and enough hose to reach the equipment. If your crawlspace access is under the house rather than an exterior hatch, mention that too. It changes how we set up.

Sometimes, depending on the day's route. After a wildfire smoke event or a hard winter of woodstove use, returns and filters load up fast and we do get same-day requests. Call early and we'll tell you honestly whether we can fit you in or whether it's tomorrow. If it's smoke or ash, change the filter right away even if we can't come until later in the week. That's the part doing the most work. The same goes for the orchard and grass pollen that comes through in spring, and for the dust that gets tracked in during harvest if you're near working ground or on a gravel road.