When a commercial building needs its air ducts cleaned, often it will be treated as a minor cleaning service and given to the lowest bidder. This is problematic, because commercial air duct cleaners should always be certified by NADCA, the National Air Duct Cleaners Association.

Why is this important?

To be a member of NADCA a certified air duct cleaner must meet the following strict requirements that show a higher standard of performance and quality assurance:

• They must have at least one NADCA certified Air Systems Cleaning Specialist (ASCS) on staff
• The company must maintain general liability insurance
• The company must agree to clean according to ACR, the NADCA Standards and always comply with NADCA’s Code of Ethics

There are many fly by night commercial building duct cleaners who do not follow proper procedures and do not carry liability insurance, and end up causing damage through their improper cleaning. When you try to contact them to fix the issue, the company has disappeared and you are stuck with the bill and the damage. Making sure you are using a fully certified, NADCA member commercial air duct cleaner avoids this potential issue.

Proper cleaning of air ducts includes the entirety of the HVAC system as well; otherwise the system will just become dirty and contaminated immediately after the cleaning. The process of commercial duct cleaning to NADCA standards involves two steps: breaking the contaminants loose and then the collection of those contaminants.

If the commercial duct cleaning company does not take the time to break the contaminants loose then the system will not actually be cleaned. They will be able to clean some of the loose debris, but this isn’t what’s causing the issues, the debris that is stuck to the sides of the ductwork is where mold grows and what collects even more dirt and contaminants. It must be fully removed for the duct cleaning to be successful.

The entire HVAC system should also be put under negative pressure during cleaning, to avoid blowing dirt and contaminants out of the system, and making sure they are all suctioned into the vacuum system. If the system is not put under negative pressure it will cause contamination and force debris into areas that were considered clean.