What dirty ducts cost a Palatka house between the March pollen and the August power bill

The arithmetic, without pretending to precision

A duct cleaning is a one-time cost. Ducts that are dirty and leaky cost money three ways across the eight-month cooling season, and the sum is larger than the cleaning more often than people expect.

First, airflow. A supply trunk lined with a decade of pollen and dust, and a filter that has been bypassed for years, make the blower push harder and the system run longer to deliver the same air. Longer run time is the FPL or Clay Electric bill. Second, leaks. A duct system in a 1960s Newtown attic or under an East Palatka double-wide commonly loses a meaningful share of its air to the attic or the crawlspace. That is cooled air you paid for, delivered to nobody. Third, the repair. Dust that reaches the indoor coil fouls it, which drives up run time further and shortens compressor life.

Put together, a house with bad ducts can spend over the summer what a cleaning and sealing would have cost, and then do it again next year. That is the case for the job. The case against it, which we will also make when it applies, is below.

Who calls Cook’s about ducts

• Buyers of older houses in the North and South Historic Districts and Palatka Heights, where the retrofit duct was installed decades ago by someone unknown.
• Manufactured-home owners in East Palatka, San Mateo and toward Interlachen, with belly duct that has never been seen since the home was set.
• Families with allergies who notice the February-to-May pollen inside the house as much as out.
• Owners of flood-touched homes along the St. Johns, Dunns Creek, Welaka and Crescent Lake, where duct under the floor sat in water after Irma or Ian.
• People finishing a renovation, with drywall and plaster dust in every register.
• Small businesses downtown, where the duct has served three tenants and nobody remembers the last cleaning.

Three Putnam County duct stories

A 1920s bungalow in Palatka Heights. New owners, a musty smell, and dust reappearing on furniture daily. The camera showed a supply trunk lined with gray felt and a return plenum open to the attic. Cleaning took a morning; sealing the return and two trunk joints took the afternoon. The dust stopped and the afternoon run time dropped enough to notice.

A double-wide near the fairgrounds in East Palatka. Weak air in the back bedrooms and a sweet, damp smell. Under the skirting, the belly duct had separated at two seams and the insulation had fallen into the trunk. This one was not a cleaning. The belly duct was replaced and sealed, and the bedrooms got air for the first time in years. We said so before quoting, and the owner skipped paying for a cleaning that would have been wasted.

A storefront on St. Johns Avenue. Three tenants, one duct system, decades of dust and the ghost of a restaurant’s grease. Cleaned over one early morning before opening, registers replaced, and a filter cabinet added so it would not need doing again soon.

How Cook’s cleans and seals

1. Camera inspection first. Every job starts by looking inside. If the duct is clean, or if it is beyond cleaning, you hear that before any work is quoted.
2. Protection. Floors and furniture near registers covered; registers removed and cleaned separately.
3. Agitation and negative-air vacuum. The duct interior is agitated and the loosened debris pulled into a sealed vacuum rather than blown into the house. Ask which equipment and method will be used on your job. [[CONFIRM WITH JERRY]]
4. Coil and blower check. Dust that reached the air handler is addressed so the clean duct is not refilled from inside.
5. Sealing. Joints, plenum connections and boots sealed with mastic. This is the step that keeps the bill down.
6. After images. You see the before and after, and the static pressure reading that tells you the system breathes easier.

Call 866-266-5709

What we stand behind

Cook’s guarantees your satisfaction with the work, and we put the before-and-after camera images in your hands so the result is not a matter of trust. If the inspection shows cleaning is not the right spend, we say so and quote the sealing, repair or replacement that is, with the camera findings to back it up. The price is set after the inspection and before the work, and it is the same on a Saturday as on a Tuesday.

What we will not guarantee is that cleaning cures a problem it cannot touch: a room with no return, a crushed run under a manufactured home, a system a size too large that leaves the house damp. Those get their own honest answer, and often their own free estimate.

The truck comes from Palm Coast, about 51 minutes east, and works the whole county from Bostwick to Crescent City. Call 866-266-5709 and start with the camera.