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Can Dirty Air Ducts Affect Your Health?

Do you know how dirty air ducts can affect your health? Air ducts are essential components that supply clean air inside your house. The air is drawn in from the outside and circulates the rooms in your home. This fresh air is not only clean but also healthy for you and your family.

However, if your air ducts are not kept clean, they are more likely to get dirty and cause various health problems. How so? You can find out more here.

Common Contaminants You’ll Find in Air Ducts

Before discussing whether or not dirty air ducts can harm your health, let’s first take a look at the common contaminants you’ll find in your home’s ventilation systems.

In this case, you’ll often find the following:

Mold

Moisture from washing machines and dryer vents, humidifiers, leaky roofs, and plumbing pipes can lead to mold growth in your ducts and vents.

The spores from this mold can travel through your home every time the heat or air conditioning kicks on, causing symptoms such as coughing and sneezing for those with asthma or allergies.

Dust Mites

Dust mites eat dead skin cells that humans and animals shed, but they leave behind allergens that can cause allergic reactions in humans who inhale them. Air duct cleaning removes these allergens before they become a problem.

Pet Hair

Pets shed their coats all year long. All that pet hair is spread throughout your home each time your furnace or AC kicks on. Getting rid of pet hair requires a thorough vacuuming session.

How to Tell if Your Air Ducts are Dirty

Image from AHC

The good news is that determining whether your air ducts and vents require cleaning can be simple. In most circumstances, a fast visual inspection can reveal visible signs of mold, dust, or debris in the ducts. You may also notice a musty odor when the air conditioner or furnace runs. Aside from that, if you have allergies, you might also experience increased symptoms, such as sneezing and itchy eyes.

If your home has never been cleaned professionally, there’s a good chance that your ductwork contains some dirt and dust. Of course, that doesn’t mean you have to have it cleaned right away. Still, it can be good to consider undergoing a professional cleaning soon.

One alternative is to have a professional perform an inspection. The inspection should include ductwork that’s accessible. They’ll use mirrors or cameras to look at what they can’t reach directly. If they see something that needs attention right away, such as mold, they’ll charge extra for it.

Another alternative is to do a DIY inspection yourself, either with a video camera or just by looking inside the registers with a mirror on an extendable pole. You should see more noticeable signs like mold on the walls of the ducts when you look at them.

Dirty Air Ducts can Lower Indoor Air Quality

Dirty air ducts can lower indoor air quality and cause health problems like allergies and other respiratory diseases.

The problem typically starts outside the home. Dirt, dust, and debris make their way into your heating and cooling system through the return-air vents. It would be best to have a professional who can use high-powered vacuums, agitation devices, and brushes to dislodge dirt and other particles in the ductwork.

It’s essential to change your HVAC system’s filters every month because the filters will become clogged with debris if you don’t. If you have pets, it’s even more important to keep those filters clean, so there’s no buildup of pet dander that can aggravate allergies.

Air Duct Contaminants can Lead to Health Issues

Imagine the air you breathe in your home passes through your furnace, which is a significant source of dust in any home. Then, it travels through dirty air ducts on its way to every room in your house.

If that doesn’t make you want to schedule a professional air duct cleaning, maybe these health concerns will.

Breathing Problems

For people with respiratory disorders, dust and dander can trigger asthma attacks and other breathing problems. When you have bad allergies or asthma, breathing can be challenging enough.

When you have dirty air ducts, it just gets worse. This is because the allergens in your air will get stuck in the vents and could be blown out into the air with every use of your heater or air conditioner.

That means that every time you turn on the heat or A/C, you’re exposing yourself to these allergens and making it harder for yourself to breathe.

Allergies

If you have allergies, dirty air ducts are likely making them worse. Dust particles travel through the vents into your home, where they float around until you inhale them. This aggravates allergies and causes allergic reactions in people who don’t even have allergies.

One of the most common health concerns associated with dirty air ducts is allergy symptoms such as sneezing, coughing, itchy eyes, runny nose, and dry throat.

Allergic symptoms are so prevalent because dirty air ducts can transport allergens throughout your entire house. These allergens may include dust mites, mold, pet dander, or even rodent feces.

Another issue related to dirty air ducts is poor indoor air quality. Poor indoor air quality can negatively impact the health of everyone who lives in the home by causing headaches, nausea, fatigue, dizziness, or eye irritation.

Skin Infections

If you have allergies, the chances are good that there could be mold growing in your air ducts due to moisture from condensation.

Mold spores can blow through your vents and cause rashes or hives on anyone who comes into contact with them. This could mean a burning sensation or redness on their skin for people with sensitive skin.

Bottom Line

In summary, a dirty air duct can negatively impact your health if it is contaminated. If you have been experiencing respiratory problems, headaches, or other issues that have not responded well to treatment, you may want to consider having your air ducts cleaned.

Ensure you schedule a visit with your local HVAC professional as soon as possible so that you can breathe easy once again.

 

 

Gail P
I am a beachy type of person, living in Newport Beach, and oftentimes I’ll go for a swim with my daughter. When I’m bored, I’ll help make package boxes for my little girl’s sticker company on Etsy.