Efficient and Affordable Ductwork Cleaning Depends on Plentiful Access Points - Business

Copyright (c) 2011 Alison Withers

Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVCA) all make use of Air Duct systems to deliver and remove air and regular air duct cleaning is important to maintaining the indoor quality of the air in any large building, where large numbers of people work, study or live.

Temperature control is also an issue because people to not perform at their peak, either in the schoolroom or lecture room, or in the workplace, if the air is stuffy or too warm.

In any building where people are frail or may have a weakened immune system, such as residential homes for the elderly and hospitals and indeed poor air quality has been implicated in situations of sick building syndrome as well as the control of airborne infections air quality is important.

In the laboratory or the workplace where toxic chemicals need to be removed from the atmosphere the efficiency of an air duct system could make the difference between life and death.

The UK's Health and Safety Executive and the COSHH (Control of Substances Hazardous to Health) both have an interest in maintaining the quality and safety of air in buildings.

One of the main problems of maintaining the hygiene and efficiency of any heating or ventilation system that relies on air ducts is whether the system has enough access points.

Assuming the system was installed some years ago it is likely that it no longer meets modern advisory standards, which have been detailed by HVCA (Heating and Ventilating Contractors' Association).

Equally the building may have been altered, extended or otherwise added to over the years and again this can complicate access to the existing ventilation ducting system.

If an organisation is using its own maintenance team to take care of ductwork cleaning the employer has a duty of care to ensure that the work can be carried out safely and using the proper equipment, and again this can be difficult to achieve when the access to the ductwork is less than adequate.

Regular maintenance and duct cleaning should be a part of any building maintenance programme. It is not only important for prevention of fire risk, possible ill health of employees but also because a well-maintained system will operate efficiently to keep energy costs as low as possible.

Often specialist commercial cleaning companies offer an initial free survey and checking service and will advise not only how frequently the system should be cleaned, filters checked and replaced, but also whether access to ductwork can be improved.

If access should prove to be an issue they also offer a service to install extra access points, which if carried out should result in less time having to be spent on future occasions for cleaning and maintenance.

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