Vent Cleaning

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The gentleman came on time and did the service very professionally. I liked the part that he also checked on my filter and some other parts of my unit even though he did it with intention to ask me to pay for some extra service. However, he did not force me to buy anything and did give me some helpful advice. 
The deal itself is good but I think if you really pay the original price (499 or 599 dollars,) you should have had a better quality service.

They arrived prompty and were very nice and courteous.  The technician explained to me what he was going to do and went to work right away.  He was very respectful of the house.  He wore shoe coverings and he had to climb up into the attic to access the heat pump.  He was very careful as there was a bureau right in front of the steps that swing down from the attic and he was able to maneuver himself to climb up into the attic despite the bureau blocking the attic stairs from completely unfolding.
We have only occupied the house for about 6 months and it was quite dirty when we moved in.  Our cleaning lady suggested we get the vents cleaned due to a lot of pet hair that we could see through the vents.  The technician also showed me how dirty the furnance was prior to the cleaning and then he showed me how clean it was after he had worked on it.
After having the vents, furnance, and heat pump cleaned I immediately noticed a difference, the air seemed much cleaner and both the furnance and the heat pump are working more efficiently.  This was an expensive process but in our case it made quite a difference in reducing the dust around the house and improving our allergies.

unknown

The first time the technician came he was unable to do the work because it was raining and he said the hoses would have tracked dirt into the house. They called back with another time a couple of weeks later and the technician came on time and did the vent cleaning as per the deal I bought, and offered to clean my chimney and fireplace (which I know needed to be done) for an additional $79.  He was professional and courteous throughout and seemed to do a good job.

I was very impressed with the young woman who called to schedule the appointment and made all the subsequent arrangements. She was pleasant, intelligent and very professional, both in the original conversation and when it was necessary to change the appointment timing. The service technician seemed knowledgeable and experienced. He arrived promptly and completed the worked quickly and efficiently. He didn't have the same people skills and friendliness as the young women described above, but he was capable and professional. Overall a very good and trouble-free experience.

The Company never responded to my proposed service dates.  It only responded when I inquired  directly of Angie's List.  Once the company did call, the representative seemed knowledgable and helpful in arranging the appointment.  The service representative arrived on time but in an unmarked panel truck.  No business card was presented.  He tried to sell me additional services ($200 more for blower coil cleaning).  I initially said no.  The balance of the work was done and he again suggested that I have the blower coil cleaned and said he could do it for  1/2 the original quote.  Nice work, but I was uncomfortable with the fact that the Company had no visible identity (e.g.   generic name and website, no address, 800 number).

not a bad job. lots of moving things around in basement. took a long time to do. big hoses and very noisy.

Price was very good. They arrived on time in a vehicle with no company name. equiptment used appeared older and not as advanced as some of the more expensive companies, however they were able to show me how much they cleaned out of the vents and there did seem to be a difference in air quality after the cleaning. Overall for the price I was happy with the service.

We had to postpone our appointment twice, but they were very accomodating. The guy came on time, checked the fan box, said it was clean.Then they attached a vacuum to the duct closest to the furnace, and went around to all the ducts, starting at the top of the house, and blew compressed air into each. Then they turned on the vacuum and sucked out the dust. None of the return ducts were cleaned though. I would have thought they would want to clean out the returns too, but I don't know. I did have a noticable improvement in air quality in the home, with less dust showing up on furniture etc. over the following weeks

He put booties on and went about his tasks efficiently and neatly.

Job well done!

They showed up when they said they would. They were professional and clean. They really care about doing a good job and as far as I can tell, they did a good job. The workers were very nice.

I would not recommend this company or service.
The tech showed up at the end of the 2 hour window looking exhausted and really just seemed to go through the motions.
I have had this service done before by a different company and the service was night and day.
I recently went and re-looked at all my vents (where I can see) and they still had dirt and dust in them and had to shop vac out the debris. (guess I should have checked before he left) Also realised that he did not provide the sanitizing and disinfecting as the deal said they would. (again only noticed after he left as it said on the receipt "cleaning only")
Dissapointing!

It went very well and they did a great job!

Do ask if the company has vehicles and equipment that are large enough to cause significant suction, ie 3-4000 cf of air. And make sure they have the chimney style brooms to sweep the soot and dust while they are doing the work. And make sure they not only cut the access neatly and to the size of the suction duct, but replace it and use appropriate tape to reseal. I have had folks who also carried drop clothes and covered carpets, but my house was all hardwood, so t was not as objectionable.

The technician cleaned a return vent in the stairwell and left debris (black sooty material) all over the stairs. He explained that his shop vac was not functional because he had used it to clean a chimney, so asked me to use my vacuum - I cleaned up the mess. He had to borrow my step ladder to get to the ceiling vent and then left the ladder on the third floor. In all, he was at my house for about 45 minutes. I would not use them again.
Update - today, my heat stopped working.  I called a technician based on reviews on Angie's List - they were very professional and had someone here within an hour.  It turns out that the blower is broken.  The technician explained the repair that is required and I asked if it could have anything to do with the fact that I had had the vents and blower cleaned two weeks ago.  He said that it was 'highly possible' that it could have been damaged during the cleaning - that in his fourteen years of experience, he has only seen one other blower of the make/model I have fail like this. I have updated the cost above to include the cost of the new blower.
Bottom line - I would definitely not use this business for vent cleaning again.

They attempted to do dryer vent cleaning inside the vent but there was something obstructing it and so he did not want to push that because he did not want to make matters worse.  I added $ 125 for the furnace in addition to the $199.  They were really nice to deal with.  First of all the technician was supposed to come on the 8th.  But he got stuck in the snow storm so they called me and scheduled the work on a Sunday which was actually his day off but he had agreed to come out and work.  So number one they went out of their way.  Number two they were very nice.  Number three they were very good at keeping in touch between the time I originally made the appointment and with any kind of update of any sort.  So it was really nice dealing with them.  The one thing I would have appreciated and this is something they surely would have done had I thought about it while he was here was to explain exactly how the whole thing works.   I thought about it only after they left.  The other question is a little bit of a follow up which I can call them for the information like should I change the filter in the duct more often.  I do change it regularly but should I do it sooner because of all the dust stuff.  Overall they were really good people.  They were really nice and considerate.

There was some mess left when he got through that I had to go around and clean up.  So I wasn’t that happy with that.  There are some things that I didn’t know whether it was done 100% or not.  The only way that I would have known that was if I had followed him from room to room.  The initial price was okay but the additional stuff that I had done was too much.

I used the big deal. They did an okay job. It seemed like sort of not a highly professional organization. They came in on an unmarked van. They did a decent job and it was okay. My wife was a little alarmed of having an unmarked van with a bunch of hoses running into the house, but it worked out okay. They did a decent job and they did not seem to be particularly thorough, but they cleaned up after themselves and they left okay. It was our first experience using that particular kind of service, as we had never had our vents cleaned out before. It was $199 for the heating system, but it is not $199 for the whole house if you have more than one heating system, and we have four so it ended up costing us four times that. We did not understand when we were first ordering it that they would really be $800 not $200, but it is a big house with a lot of vent in it, so it was fair enough at the end. The quality of the work was decent, thought it did not feel like they really particularly shined, but they did what they said they would do, so it was okay. They were okay, not great. They did not take the time really, I was not here when it was happening and my wife was a little bit nervous and I asked her to make sure that she could see what they were doing. They told me over the phone they would show how much lint and dirt they removed and so she would get a sense for how full their canisters were or whatever they used, bags or something to show how much dust and other stuff they removed from the system. They had explained me over the phone that they would do that and then somehow the communication broke down and they did not actually do that. So it was no big deal, we sort of assumed that they did a good job, but there was not really anyway to for us to see what they had taken out of the vent system. I thought they were going to show us that, so it was disappointing, but again not a big deal. They seemed to be reasonably competent. I think they also had said they were going to send in two guys, but they only sent one guy and then when he got here he thought it was a bigger job and then they had to explain to him that I had explained over the phone to them. I told them the size of the house, number of heating and ventilation systems, all of that so it should not have been a surprise to him so there seemed to be a couple of glitches in their own internal communication. However, they did a decent job. We are glade we did it and it gave my wife a peace of mind, because after the big storm Sandy that our vent had come through she was nervous about what might have gotten into our ventilation systems and that probably we should have them cleaned out from time to time. So seeing the coupon on Angie's List that gave us a push to do something that we probably ought to do.

Although I've been skeptical about the efficacy of ordinary heating duct and vent cleaning, Angie's List offered a Big Deal:  $475 worth of "Air Duct Cleaning, Sanitizing Plus Deodorizing" for $199.  It sounded good, but it turned out to have the same problem as with any up-front payment:  the provider has no incentive to do the job right. 

The office was very easy and pleasant to work with.  Since I live some distance from the company, I inquired whether the price included travel time or whether that would cut into the service, and I was told travel time wouldn't be an issue.  As it turned out, they were able to combine my job with another one not too far away.

The' technician' arrived two hours late and had the too-steady gaze of someone with something to hide.  He used what he said was a special form for Angie's List customers, taken from the bottom of his stack of forms.  The release he had me sign warned about vent covers being removed, but he didn't do that.  He blew compressed air into all the vents with a small nozzle, forcing dust, dirt and debris farther into the ductwork.  After that was done, he hooked up a large vacuum to a vent and pulled air through the system for 5 minutes, sucking out the dust.  At no time did he open any main ducts or trunk lines.  How the 'sanitizing and deodorizing' was done is a mystery to me.  The job took 40 minutes on-site, which was fast enough that I didn't have time to reflect on the actual process and signed off on the job before I realized that that was all he was going to do.  Having found this company on Angie's List, I was lulled into a false sense of security.

He then urged me to have the service performed every two years. 

I'm glad I didn't pay full price for this job; that would have been $710/hr on-site.  I don't believe my ductwork is any cleaner than before, though the vents themselves are.  If anything, in the long run my ducts are in WORSE condition, because any dirt and debris -- now deep in the ducts -- can no longer be removed easily. The same amount of time with an ordinary vacuum cleaner and a screwdriver would have been more effective.

VERY POOR VALUE FOR A PURELY COSMETIC SERVICE.

The photos and video this company has posted on Angie's Lst are false advertising, because the company doesn't do what is shown or promised.  This company and its Angie's List Big Deal are a Big Scam, as reading other recent reviews here will confirm.

The company called me immediately to schedule an appointment however due to the holidays I requested to postpone until after the new year. Then my appointment was reschedule due to weather related issues. The only other thing I wish the employee had done was vacuum the duct directly connected to the furnice the wall ducts were cleaned. The employee warned us that we would smell some burning for a little after the service was complete, but I few days later, while my furnice was being serviced, I noticed the accumulation of substantial dust near the furnice where the hot air is blown through the house. It was obvious that the ducts were alot cleaner than before,, but that dust accumulation near the furnice was an issue for me.

The cleaning if the dryer ducts was excellent.

Very well.

The person that performed the work did a good job and was very concerned
with not making a mess.  His performance was very good in that area. 
My only complaint is that they were over 90 minutes later than they had
scheduled themselves for and I had to call them to find out whether the
technician was coming or not.

Please see above.