Air duct cleaning is worth it when somebody has found something: a musty smell at startup, growth on the coil, water in the system, or renovation debris. It works on the surfaces it reaches, but it only removes dust and does not replace treatment. We clean, then treat: $50 a vent with a whole-home disinfection ($0.30 per heated square foot, $200 minimum), or from $399 alone. 12-month written guarantee.
See your price
- Whole-home disinfection: $0.30 per heated sq ft ($200 minimum)
- Clean the vents on the same visit: $50 each (no extra minimum)
- Both include Bactronizing with BactroKill Plus + 12-month written guarantee
Not sure what you need?
Start with the vents
A smell that rides the air is growing in the duct work. We scrub each vent and return with a rotary brush, clean the registers, the coil and the outside of the air handler, then treat them. $50 a vent, from $399 on its own. Spores travel on the air, so most people add the whole-home disinfection on the same visit, and then the vents carry no minimum. 12-month written guarantee.
Start with the whole home
A smell that sits in the rooms, or came with the last people, is on the surfaces, not only in the air. Whole-home disinfection sprays every surface in the house, closets included, plus the duct work and the drain pan: $0.30 per heated square foot, $200 minimum, about 30 to 75 minutes, and you can stay home. Dust or growth in the vents needs cleaning first, so add the air duct cleaning at $50 each on the same visit if the vents are dirty. 12-month written guarantee.
We look first
Mold you can see gets wiped off, not sprayed over. Every one is different, so we look before we price it, and Greg puts the price in writing before any work starts.
Fix the water first
Mold is a water problem first. Wet material grows again, so the leak, the flood or the drain line gets fixed before anything is sprayed. Once it is dry we treat it, and if something is still wet we say so before we start.
Two ways to be sure
If you can smell it or see it, the CDC says you do not need to know the type, so most people skip the test and treat. To be sure anyway: while we are at the house we can swab a surface and read it on a hand-held meter, or send samples to a lab, $350 for two and $450 for four.
Request a window Or start with the treatment Call 843-282-7777
Closed now. Opens today at 8 am.
Request a windowGreg confirms it in writing.Call 843-282-7777Do not know the square footage? Request a visit without a number. We work it out when we come out.
Veteran owned. Licensed and insured. EPA-registered product. 12-month written guarantee.
What makes a duct job worth paying for?
A finding. Something that is there now, that somebody has seen or smelled, and that a cleaning can remove. Four of them come up again and again in Lowcountry houses.
A musty smell in the first minute of a cycle. The coil is wettest right after the system starts, so that is when the odor is strongest. The EPA names the mechanism: condensation on or near the cooling coils of air conditioning units is a major factor in moisture contamination of the system (source). A smell that tracks the fan running, and not cooking or a damp room, points at the system.
Growth you can see. On the coil, on the first run of duct off the air handler, or dark specks around the registers. This is the EPA’s own first reason to clean: “There is substantial visible mold growth inside hard surface (e.g., sheet metal) ducts or on other components of your heating and cooling system” (source).
Water that got into the system. A storm, a line that backed up, a drain pan that overflowed. Wet metal and wet dust is the start of every one of these jobs.
Renovation debris. Drywall dust and sawdust go into an open return and stay there. New construction and a remodel both do it.
The EPA lists two more reasons of its own: ducts “infested with vermin, e.g. (rodents or insects)”, and ducts “clogged with excessive amounts of dust and debris and/or particles are actually released into the home from your supply registers” (source). If debris is coming out of a register onto the floor, that is a finding too.
Does duct cleaning really work?
Yes, on the surfaces it reaches, and those are the surfaces a musty smell grows on. Cleaning takes the dust and debris off them, and we go over the system twice, because one pass gets what is loose and the second gets what is stuck. Then BactroKill Plus goes on those same surfaces, EPA Reg. No. 82972-1-90746, applied to its label: a bacteriostat, fungistat and mildewstat for HVAC systems and air ducts in residential settings, and a deodorizer that works by oxidation rather than by masking. The cleaning moves the dust. The treatment deals with what the dust was growing on.
That is why air duct cleaning on its own does not replace treatment. It removes dust, and it stops there.
What neither one does is fix the water. If a duct is still sweating or a condensate line is still backing up, the moisture has to be dealt with too, by us telling you what is wet or by an HVAC company fixing it. This is treatment. It is not structural mold remediation, it does not fix an active leak, and moisture that is still wet can grow mold again.
How do you tell a real duct job from a ripoff?
Four tests, and you can run all four before anybody is standing in your hallway.
1. Did the price come before anybody looked, and does it hold? A number that moves once the technician is inside your house was never a price. The EPA puts a typical duct cleaning at $450 to $1,000 per heating and cooling system (source). A flat special advertised well under that, before anyone knows how many vents you have, is worth one question: what is included at that number, and what does the rest cost? Ours is $50 a vent on the same visit as a whole-home disinfection, or from $399 for the vents alone, and it is the number on the invoice.
2. Do they clean before they treat? This is the one most people never think to ask. The EPA’s instruction on chemical treatments in a duct system is plain: “They should only be applied, if at all, after the system has been properly cleaned of all visible dust or debris” (source). Spraying over dirt is the shortcut. It is faster, and it is why a smell comes back in a month. We clean first.
3. Can you read the scope? Ours is four things and they are the same four every time: the registers, the duct work, the coil and the outside of the air handler. “Whole house special” is not a scope. Ask what is in it and what is extra.
4. Is there anything in writing afterward? Ours is a 12-month guarantee, on the invoice: if what we treated comes back inside the year, we come back and re-treat it. No charge. The treatment certificate transfers if you sell the house.
One more thing worth knowing, because it turns up on a lot of duct cleaning ads: “EPA neither establishes duct cleaning standards nor certifies, endorses, or approves duct cleaning companies” (source). There is no EPA blessing for a duct cleaner to hold. A product can carry an EPA registration number, and ours does: EPA Reg. No. 82972-1-90746.
What changes the answer?
Whether the moisture got fixed. The EPA’s own line: “Controlling moisture is the most effective way to prevent biological growth in air ducts” (source). A cleaning and a treatment against a duct that is still sweating is a reset, not a repair. We tell you what is wet. Getting the humidity down, or the condensate line draining, is what makes the work hold.
Hard surface or porous. Sheet metal duct, registers, the coil and the outside of the air handler clean up and hold a treatment. Insulation is a different story, and the EPA is direct about it: “If you have insulated air ducts and the insulation gets wet or moldy it cannot be effectively cleaned and should be removed and replaced” (source). Soaked fiberglass duct board or internal liner is a replacement job for an HVAC company, not a cleaning job for us, and we say so when that is what is in front of us.
Whether anybody has actually looked. You can do the first look yourself in five minutes. Take a register cover off and look down the run with a flashlight. Look at the coil if you can reach it, or ask the HVAC company that services your unit what the coil looked like the last time they had the cover off. What you find there decides whether any of this is worth buying.
What does it cost, and what happens on the day?
Whole-home disinfection for mold is $0.30 per heated square foot with a $200 minimum, the same rate on every house. Air duct cleaning and treatment is $50 a vent on the same visit, however many you have, with no extra minimum. Booked alone, air duct cleaning and treatment starts at $399.
Time at the house: about 30 minutes at 1,500 square feet, 45 at 2,500 and 75 at 3,500 for the house. About 90 minutes at 12 vents for the air system.
You can stay in the house while we work. Keep people and pets out of a room while we spray it. It is yours again 15 minutes later. No trip charge. You pay on the day.
Each job has its own page: air duct cleaning, what the air duct cleaning and treatment covers, and what mold in the ducts looks like.
How to buy this properly
Buy it the way you would check any other trade. You can run the whole check from your phone.
1. Get the number before anyone is in your hallway. Put your heated square feet in above and the total comes back on the screen. It is the number on the invoice. You have not spoken to anyone and nobody has your address yet.
2. Read the scope against the number. Ours is the rooms inside the square feet you gave us, plus, if you add the vents, the registers, the duct work, the coil and the outside of the air handler. Four things, the same four every time. Hold any other quote to the same test.
3. Add the vents if the smell is at the vents. On a musty-AC call the air system is the half doing the heavy lifting.
4. Pick the window. Greg confirms it by hand and you get the price and the window in writing. Monday to Friday 8 to 4, Saturday 8 to 12.
If you have looked and found nothing yet, the coil is the place to look and the price above will still be there when you have. Nothing about it changes because you took a week. Got a question first? Send us a message.
Request a window
Put your heated square feet in above, and a vent count if the smell is at the vents. Pick the day and window that suit you, and we call or write back to lock in the time.