The whole system, not only the vents

Air Duct Cleaning in McKinney, TX

A full cleaning reaches every supply run, every return and the trunk lines, with the whole system held under suction so that what is knocked loose leaves the house. This page lists what that includes, so a quote can be checked against it.

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Worth buying when debris is coming out of the registers, the house has just been built or remodeled, something has been living in the ducts, or the system is decades old and has never been opened.

Not worth buying because a few years have passed, or because there is a film of dust on a grille.

What a Full Job Covers

Supply registers and the boots behind them. The register comes off and the metal box it sits on is cleaned.
Every branch run. A brush or air whip is worked down each duct while the vacuum pulls toward the trunk.
The trunk lines and supply plenum, reached through openings the system already has.
Return grilles and the return duct, back to the air handler intake. Returns carry unfiltered house air and are normally the dirtiest part.

The EPA's advice on what to expect from a provider includes two points worth holding a quote to: that they "open access ports or doors to allow the entire system to be cleaned and inspected," and that they use "vacuum equipment that exhausts particles outside of the home" or HEPA vacuuming equipment if the vacuum exhausts indoors.

How it goes here

An Attic Job, in Most McKinney Houses

McKinney houses built from the 1960s on sit on slabs, and the air handler usually sits in the attic with the ducts fanning out from it across the ceiling joists. That makes the attic hatch the front door for this job.

The crew finds the air handler and counts what is attached to it. A two-story house often has one system per floor, and each is cleaned as its own job.
A large vacuum is connected near the air handler so the ductwork is under suction.
Registers are opened one at a time from inside the rooms and each run is agitated toward the vacuum.
The return side is done the same way.
Registers go back on, the filter is replaced, and the system is run.

Before anyone arrives, clear the path to the attic hatch and move whatever is stored on the decking near the unit.

Where the job stops

What Is Left Out, and Why

Under the Texas rule, a company without an air conditioning contractor license may clean "from the supply plenum to the supply grilles" and "from the return air grill to the air handler intake," and only if "no cuts are made to ducts or plenums" and "no changes are made to electrical connections."

So a duct cleaning does not include the evaporator coil, the blower, the inside of the air handler cabinet, a new access door cut into a plenum, or any disinfectant sprayed into the system. Those can be worth doing. They are a licensed air conditioning contractor's work, quoted separately. See coil, blower and sanitizing.

About the Job Itself

How do I know the whole system was cleaned and not only the vents?

Ask for photographs from inside the trunk line and the return, taken before and after. Then pull two or three registers yourself and look into the metal behind them with a flashlight.

Does the air conditioning have to be off during the job?

Yes. The system is shut down while the ducts are under suction, so plan for a few hours without cooling in summer.

Is one cleaning enough?

For most houses, yes, until something changes: a remodel, a pest problem, water in the ducts. There is no interval to keep to.