Air duct cleaning prices in Queen Creek

The 15% comes off the duct cleaning. It does not come off the fogging or the exhaust fans, and we would rather say that here than have you work it out from an invoice.

$150 minimum per visit. No square footage math, no per-system price that changes once somebody is in your attic, and no separate charge for the main trunk line.

Two real examples. A typical three-bedroom with 10 supply vents and 2 returns is 12 openings, so $780 before the discount and $663 after it. A smaller home with 7 openings is $455, or $386.75 after.

Count them yourself before you ring anybody

This takes about two minutes and it puts you in a considerably better position on every call you make, including ours.

Walk the house and count every opening connected to your heating and cooling. Supply vents are the ones air blows out of, usually in ceilings, one or two per room. Returns are the big ones that suck air in, usually one or two in a hallway or near the thermostat, and they are noticeably larger.

Add them together. That number times $65 is the rate, and 15% comes off that, so it is really $55.25 an opening. Twelve openings is $663.

Any company that will not price off that number, and instead needs to come out and look first, is leaving themselves room to arrive at a different figure once you are committed.

Worked examples

Add $160 per HVAC unit for the sanitizing fogging and $50 each for exhaust fans. Neither is required, neither is discounted, and we will tell you when they are not worth having.

Why per opening and not per house

Because it is the only figure you can verify before anybody arrives.

Square footage pricing sounds objective and is not checkable by you. Two identical-sized houses can have very different opening counts depending on how the system was designed, and you have no way to audit somebody's calculation.

Per-system pricing sounds simple and leaves the most room of all, because the definition of a system expands once somebody is standing in your attic describing how much more work yours turned out to be.

Per opening is countable by a homeowner in two minutes. That is not a marketing decision, it is the whole reason we use it. You can check our price against anybody else's before you commit to anything.

The two optional extras

Sanitizing fogging, $160 per HVAC unit

Benefect Decon 30, applied through the system after cleaning. Worth it on a system with an odor issue, one that has sat unused, or one with a damp history. Not worth it on three healthy systems in a large house just because the house is large, and we will say so. Full detail.

Exhaust fan cleaning, $50 each

Bathroom and laundry exhaust fans. These do a great deal of work, are almost never opened, and a clogged one is not moving the moisture it was fitted to move. More here.

What is included at $65 an opening

• A walk of the system with you, and an honest answer about whether it is worth doing
• Registers off, so we are in the actual run rather than the visible end of it
• Agitation with a flexible air rod and whip head down the run
• Negative pressure throughout, so material leaves the house rather than relocating
• The main trunk line, at no separate charge
• Registers and grilles cleaned properly rather than wiped
• Before and after down the same run, so you can see what changed

What the cheap ads cost you

A $49 or $89 whole-house offer does not cover the labor, so one of two things happens.

The scope shrinks to what a vacuum reaches from the register, which is the part that was never the problem. Or the number grows once somebody is in your house and the registers are already off.

Our figure is on this page, it is per opening, and you can calculate it yourself before picking up the phone.

When it is worth doing at all

There is no universal schedule and anyone who gives you one is guessing. What there are is circumstances that genuinely justify it, and most Queen Creek homes hit at least one.

• The house is new, or newly remodeled. Drywall dust and construction debris sit in ductwork installed before the house was finished around it
• Nobody has ever done it and the house is more than ten years old
• You are moving into a place somebody else lived in
• Visible dust blowing out of registers when the system kicks on
• A persistent smell you cannot locate
• Rodent or insect evidence in the system
• Farm and construction dust, which in this town is most of the year

If none of those apply and your filter is being changed on schedule, you may not need this, and we would rather tell you that than take $780.

Pricing questions