Truck Mounted Duct Cleaning

Mr. Steamer : If you got dust blowing out vents than having your ducts cleaned is not the answer to your problem.  I think duct cleaning has gone the way of the room cleaner.  There is not  a lot of ethics left in the duct cleaning business.  Lets get something strait I don't mean everyone just the bad apples which probably amounts to about 80%.

Never did get an answer on this one.......does the unit that attaches to the truck mount work?????

Nice to see Superglide Ken back in the ring.

Ken is the most persistent person I have ever met. He invented the Superglide to attach to your wands that take the hard push and pull work out of carpet cleaning. We have had a love hate relationship with selling them. But the people who love them wish they had them 20 years ago. Believe me the small problems that Ken has had introducing them he will definitely overcome. He is that kind of guy.

 

I do like the truckmounts for the duct cleaning side of the business for a number of reasons. 1. WE use only diesel trucks , for lower opperating cost. 2. I strongly feel any form of mechcanial scrubing is the best form of cleaning . 3. Because you must cut into the pleuums, you see  & retrieve all the hidden debris and polish the side walls from the mechanical brush ( hand or air driven brush ) this slow down the resoiling of the plenum. Yes it does take longer per job, customers do see your time is well spent, and don`t mind paying more for the job. And the referals are the best form of building any business.

Dennis Steele (seals restorations ) sask.

 

I have cleaned ducts both with the big honkin truck with the BIG compressor and with a TM system.

If you know what you are doing,you can do a better job with the TM IMHO.

I have also heard from one of Ken's competitor's (duct cleaning equip) that his stuff is actually of better quality.

[QUOTE=MR. STEAMER]

Actually I heard from my gas man that it's acutally a better clean...what kills a furnace is all that crap being blown down into the furnace...it could screw the burners and fry the fan...this only sucks...

 

Any competent duct cleaner blocks off the furnace until it's time to clean the furnace, coils, etc. 

Regardless of the many conflicting opinions about this subject, I am still convinced of 2 things regarding cleaning residential ducting: The Cleanco IAQ system and our Turboteck System are the 2 most best way for cleaning ductwork that you can buy.The Cleanco System came out first in 1995 and took into consideration all the requirements needed to clean ductwork well in the CANADIAN marketplace. That market is comprised of primary main and return ducting and secondary ducting running to the vents of the rooms. Cleaning the secondary ducting is the easy part. The ducting is mostly 4" and 5" in diameter in the older homes, with most homes newer than 30 years old using 6" ducts. The original Cleanco system used 3 different brushs to clean these different sizes. I had a better idea in 1998. I built just one tool that would take all 3 brush sizes. Next, I knew that these types of ducts(4" to 6" rounds) would clean up better is there was a rotating brush at the front of the tool to remove more debrie than the fixed support brushs were doing, so I asked Cleanco if they would be interested in me developing such a tool for them and them buying it from me. This was in March 1998 at the Orlando ASCR show. Instead, Cleanco developed their own tool instead, so the following year(1999) I started selling my own rotary system to distributers under the name of Spinmax. This system(as well as Cleanco's) work great with 200 cfms of airflow to power them.

They work by being screwed onto 25 ft of 1.5" carpet cleaning vacuum hose by the reverse threads on the aluminum tool body. This is the part of the hose that actually goes into the vents. The 1.5" hose is connected to 100 ft or more of 2" vacuum hose that is connected to the waste tank of your TM. The tool has 3 vacuum intakes at the front of it to take in the debrie found in the ducting, mostly the duct wall. There is an aluminum turbine located in the center of the tool that spins on a front mounted high speed bearing via a stainless steel shaft. The bearing is rated to 25,000 rpm , but since it only spins 1000 to 4000 rpm in the Turboteck Tool, it lasts for years. Most of these that I sold in this decade are still working on their original bearings.The turnine spins a counterweight at the front of the tool to which are attached screw in brushs. These brushes are worth $20/set and last an average of 10 jobs, reducing the cost to only $2/house, the lowest cost in the industry.After you finish a job, you un-screw them till the next job.

The Cleanco system and the Turboteck system use the same type of rectangular shaped brushs for cleaning the main and return system. You can't clean a rectangular duct properly with a ROUND BRUSH, cause you miss the corners. So you must cut a 12"X12" hole into the furnace Plenum in the basements of most houses. Then you connect your vacuum hose to these larger rectangular brushs and you sweep these large Ducts with the brushs that are connected to fiberglass rods that screw into each other. If your access hole is located near the middle of the ducting, you will not have to go much more than 15 ft in either direction to accomplish this. Most of the contaminates are on the Return side of the system, and thats where you will spend the most time cleaning. When done, you place a 14" X14" patch over the access hole and use zip screws to seal it up. Duct tape covers all sharp edges as the final step. If you have a video inspection system, you show the customer the job you did before you seal it . Vacuum the blower wheel on the furnace, clean all the vent covers and you are done.Most smaller homes can be done in 2 hours and larger homes (up to 2000 sq ft )can be done in 3 hrs or less.

Limitations: Not all houses can be cleaned using these systems. Many of the newer homes have dampner doors that you may shut accidently if you do not use a video camera system. Larger homes(bigger than 2000-3000 sq ft also may pose a problem with muliple furnace and main and return systems. But these comprise no more than 10 to 20% of most markets in Canada, and there is still 80 to 90% that you can do with no problems. With experience, you can tell the ones that cause you problems and do the rest. The market demand for this service is still bigger than the demand for carpet cleaning, and the money is better. There is no reason that you need to leave it to someone else. The biggest fear that stops most people from acting is fear of the unknown. With an entry fee of only a couple of thousand dollars(including tools)on these types of air duct cleaning systems, the only big unknown IMO, is how many thousands in profits are you losing each year by not offering the survice?

Thanks for reading all this. Hopefully is helps some of you from seeing that it is not rocket science. It is only the fear of doing something new that keeps people out of it. The same fear that stops most from cleaning furniture in the home, or asking the customer if they would like Scotchgard. Get over it. It is costing you to much!