Sears air duct cleaning scam

[Anonymous]

On the other hand dryer vent needs cleaning.

[Anonymous]

Sears? Is this a thread from the 1950s?

[Anonymous]

I had the same experience this week with Sears. We had smelled some humidity on our A/C ducts and we decided to call Sears thinking they are a reputable company but, boy, were we wrong. We had to go on an emergency trip and left our cleaning lady to meet them.
He called and said I didn't need the $99 dollar air duct cleaning. I needed a fogging on the ducts and a UV light. Total, from $99 he came up with $2500. And the house still smell mold. But he was an extremely intelligent scammer...he made sure "this is not a odor treatment" because Sears doesn't do this type of service. So now we are trying to chargeback but, again, they have all the correct wording on the invoice. I hope some TV channel get a hold of this situation and expose these criminals.

[Anonymous]

Also beware of the company PROCLEAN they did this to us as well - scared the shit out of us and charged us 5K for remediation of "MOLD" !!!

[Anonymous]

I feel like duct cleaning is needed for me.

The first house I bought ( over 10 years ago) always have flies every summer indoor. Many flies! Like 5-10 daily when we hardly open the window. We had exterminators but wasn’t helping.

Turn out the house was previously rented out and the tenant throw their tras such as food, rubbish in the floor vent in many room 😵😵😵😋😫. Gross! 🤮
During duct cleaning we found lots of rotten derbies from food, worms. So basically the vents were breeding ground for the flies.

After we had that done, no more flies.

Yes I found it so helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok verdict? Air duct cleaning never needed?

Without doing research, I would guess no unless something very unusual is going on. While dust etc can collect on the interior walls of a duct, it will remain there. Air velocity at the wall of a duct is low (almost zero since it's a boundary), so interior duct walls are always "dusty." You need turbulent flow to scour the walls and for rigid duct systems that's uncommon IMHO. For mold growth in there to release spores, you need damp. In winter, with low humidity and high temperature air, that doesn't happen. In summer, the cool air has already dumped the moisture at the evaporator.

Cleaning the interior coils is something you should do periodically. It gets damp, collects dust (because filters aren't perfect) and will sit there wet after the blower shuts down.

Any dust stuck to the walls of your ducts will stay here. Unless you bang on the ducts while air is going through it. Duct cleaning is a huge scam. You would need to send a tiny little creature in there with a brush to crawl through the entire length of your ducts and scrub it off and collect it. UV lights in a duct DO NOT DO ANYTHING! You can kill mold and bacteria with UV light but it's not going to do anything to the air passing through. White stuff in a humidifier is lime deposits from the minerals in your water. Use a water softener and you won't have that (but you will have salt deposits). Most mold remediation is also a big scam. There are certain types of mold that are deadly out of the 100s of molds out there. It's highly unlikely you have that kind of mold. Mold needs a moist organic surface to grow. Get rid of the moisture and mold goes dormant. Or, pay someone to kill it and it will just return again if you don't address the moisture problem.

I believe UV lights can be effective if they shine on your evaporator coil. That's where the moisture is.

That is not how they install them.

That is exactly how mine is installed the and only way that is effective.

[Anonymous]

Topic bump, had new furnace and ductwork installed and then renovated the home. Who has had a good experience with a ductwork cleaning in the Bethesda area, and if you don’t mind disclosing what the cost was, thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Air duct cleaning is always a scam. No one should be surprised they try to scam you further.

Only one exception: clean HVAC ducts once immediately after a major renovation which left dust all over the rest of the house…

[Anonymous]

185.00

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok verdict? Air duct cleaning never needed?

Without doing research, I would guess no unless something very unusual is going on. While dust etc can collect on the interior walls of a duct, it will remain there. Air velocity at the wall of a duct is low (almost zero since it's a boundary), so interior duct walls are always "dusty." You need turbulent flow to scour the walls and for rigid duct systems that's uncommon IMHO. For mold growth in there to release spores, you need damp. In winter, with low humidity and high temperature air, that doesn't happen. In summer, the cool air has already dumped the moisture at the evaporator.

Cleaning the interior coils is something you should do periodically. It gets damp, collects dust (because filters aren't perfect) and will sit there wet after the blower shuts down.

Any dust stuck to the walls of your ducts will stay here. Unless you bang on the ducts while air is going through it. Duct cleaning is a huge scam. You would need to send a tiny little creature in there with a brush to crawl through the entire length of your ducts and scrub it off and collect it. UV lights in a duct DO NOT DO ANYTHING! You can kill mold and bacteria with UV light but it's not going to do anything to the air passing through. White stuff in a humidifier is lime deposits from the minerals in your water. Use a water softener and you won't have that (but you will have salt deposits). Most mold remediation is also a big scam. There are certain types of mold that are deadly out of the 100s of molds out there. It's highly unlikely you have that kind of mold. Mold needs a moist organic surface to grow. Get rid of the moisture and mold goes dormant. Or, pay someone to kill it and it will just return again if you don't address the moisture problem.

Thank you. I think I’m going to bookmark this for the next time this comes up (which is about once a week).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your first mistake was calling a company for air duct cleaning. You’d already told them you could be scammed. From there it was just a question of how far they could take you.

Sometimes duct cleaning is necessary, such as after construction/renovation in the house.

Debatable

Not in my case, I saw the ducts, they were gross. It depends on the amount of dust generated and how well the crew contains it.

Didn't use Sears but did the same after a renovation. Negligible amounts found - plus we had been living here for 8+ years at the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had the same experience for Sear Duct Cleaning. The way they came and checked the HVAC system and said about the mold thing. I refused because was not prepared for the bill of 1140/- instead of $ 114/-. The most important thing to inform is after their visit, my electricity bill is doubled, For the last three years, my bills were consistent, but now I don't know what that guy has done to my system, my monthly electricity bills are too high. I wish someone can help me with that.

Check to make sure they didn’t close and not reopen the vents or dampers.