Is Furnace Air Duct Cleaning Necessary

[lizbud]

In my case, nope, never had them cleaned, have no intention of ever having them cleaned.

My house is a nightmare anyways.

I rent an old house that's had who knows how much unlicensed work done by different homeowners over the years. Just in my lifetime the house has had 10 different owners, that I know of anyways, and several of those owners rented the house out to people who seemed determined to destroy it.

The furnace is fortunate to even be limping along working at all it's so old and rusted, at this point I have a laundry basket proping up the panel on the front of it so it will draw air through the filter instead of directly into the furnace.

It's located in my basement which has constant water leaks all the time and mold all over the place. Even getting a filter on the thing takes a pair of scissors and a lot of duct tape. You have to cut the filter down to size since it's non standard and tape it on the front of a badly sealed metal box mounted to the side of the furnace. That's assuming the basement doesn't flood high enough to reach the filter which is within an inch of the floor itself.

One duct runs through a cement block wall in the basement, under my front porch, and to a register there. Someone didn't cut the holes to line up right so it's got a huge air gap where the parts don't line up right and often blows just cold air so I have to shut the vent. To boot they cut the hole too big in the cement and to seal it up stuffed a pair of painters pants (yes you read that right) around the duct work to keep the air/dust out of the basement.

I vacuume out the registers as far as I can reach about twice a year just to keep it from throwing dust and stuff on my carpets.

If I had a real furnace, and a normal house though, I'd probably have the duct work cleaned every few years.

This really bothers me that you live in unsafe conditions like the
ones you described here. I'm surprised that the owner can get by with
renting a house with a furnace in bad condition. Do you use smoke detectors?

[Medusa]

If you're looking for a reputable person/company to do the work, Angie's List is great. There will be lists and reviews for you to peruse and you may find a better price, too, b/c some offer coupons.

[Catlady711]

This really bothers me that you live in unsafe conditions like the
ones you described here. I'm surprised that the owner can get by with
renting a house with a furnace in bad condition. Do you use smoke detectors?

Yes, I always have had smoke detectors in my homes.

The particular town I live in is full of corrupt and lazy leaders. The inspector for this town is lazy and will sign off on just about anything. No one checks for permits. Heck they did a sewer/storm drain separation project last year. Each home is supposed to have been inspected and if they have any storm drainage into the sewer system it's supposed to be capped and separated. Given how much my basement leaks that should have been a fail immediately as we have a floor drain, no sump. When they inspected this house they said they'd have to dig for a drain around the house. The inspector admitted they'd never get around to doing it so I shouldn't concern myself with it as they'd just let it ride. Tax dollars at work there.

Actually my bigger complaint is the basement itself. If it didn't leak so much many of the problems would dissapear.

However I shouldn't complain too much. My rent is rediculously cheap, and every year since I moved in here, in December he gives us a 'rent free' month as a Christmas present for taking good care of the house (his previous renters were awful). I'm allowed to treat the house as if I own it (can paint any color on anything, put in flower beds, garden, plant trees, change faucets, etc). Most of the time the landlord is pretty good about most things. If something big goes out (furnace, hot water heater etc) he drives down and is fixing it immediately or replacing it if he can't fix it. When my fridge and ceiling fan quit he told me to go pick out what I wanted, buy it and just take it off the rent.

The bad part is the stuff he can't do himself he relies on his unlicensed buddies who do stuff on the side to take care of it and half the time they take forever to show up and get it done.