What’s Crawling Around in Your Home’s Air Ducts?

It’s unpleasant to consider, but often times dust isn’t all that is in your duct system. You might have heard animal noises coming from air ducts and realize you have unwanted visitors. You can try and lure the little guys out but they may not leave their babies if they are nesting. Call Service Experts Heating & Air Conditioning for a comprehensive duct cleaning and we will confirm your duct system is clear of all these unwelcome house guests, such as: 

Insects and Bugs 

Not much is worse than working to kill a spider and seeing it run into an air vent. It’s impossible to get it now and all you can do is sit on the couch and imagine the thing laying all those baby spiders. You may even swear you hear some racing around your duct system. Never fear. Service Experts Heating & Air Conditioning will come see you and give you a thorough duct cleaning and assure that spider and any of her bug friends are good and gone. Babies, too. 

Rodents 

When rats, squirrels, and other wildlife find themselves in your duct system, commonly through gaps in the duct work and cracks in the foundation or home exterior, it causes multiple issues. First, rodents can leave droppings behind and can ruin anything they get into, including Christmas decorations or old toys you’re saving in your attic. Second, animals tend to chew, which can cause exposed wiring. That mixed with the twigs and dried grass they’re likely carrying in to build a nest, and now you have quite the fire risk in your duct system, your attic, or behind your walls. A thorough duct cleaning can get rid of rodent droppings or nests, but you could also need to call a professional animal removal company to remove the mice, squirrels, or other wildlife and maybe an electrician if there was any wire damage. 

Birds 

Birds typically look for safe and sheltered places to nest, like your air vents. Nests mean babies, which means they are finding food for babies, and that means BUGS. If you have birds in your vents, you’ll probably end up with six-legged and eight-legged critters in your home. But that’s not the worst part. Birds build nests in your vents, and given the vast amount of stuff they use to create said nest, it can wind up fully clogging a vent, obstructing any airflow. As with mice, squirrels, etc., a full duct cleaning from Service Experts Heating & Air Conditioning can eliminate any droppings, feathers, or other potential illness-carrying leave-behinds. You may also need a professional wildlife removal company to actually remove the birds from your vents or attics. 

Mice in Air Ducts 

If you’ve got mice in your home’s air ducts, you should take steps to remove them. Mice gnaw wiring and leave refuse like all rodents, but they also add to their population quickly. And when they run around in the ducts, treating it like the beltway of your house, they usually die in the ducts. This creates a health hazard, and you may notice an unsavory odor. 
 
You may think of mice due to the sounds you hear – some scratching and scrabbling inside sheet metal. Or you may actually notice one making an escape into the vents in your home. You might even confirm their passage by inspecting the ducts for mice droppings. Either way, if you think there’s mice you have some options. You could trap them yourself, by placing traps inside each vent and checking them in the morning. Or you can contract a professional exterminator. 
 
After you’ve determined that the mice are exterminated, you will need to have your air ducts thoroughly cleaned by an HVAC company. If mice have been present, they will have left feces in your ducts. Mice leavings are toxic, and if you don’t remove them from your ducts they can make you sick. Service Experts Heating & Air Conditioning offers duct cleaning services that will clean out most debris from your home’s airways. 

Call Service Experts Heating & Air Conditioning soon or schedule online for a full duct cleaning to help make sure the air you are breathing is healthy and pest-free.