On Friday, I worked from home in order to meet some furnace/air duct cleaner people at my house for some maintenance/cleaning. I thought the final bill would be about $150-$200 to clean out the ducts and make sure the air is flowing correctly. Welllllllllll.......4 hours later I got a bill for $1,427! I guess I had a TON of black mold in my air handler unit (I did see it with my own eyes when they opened everything up, so I know they weren't lying) and it spread quite a bit. My house was built in 1985, so it's about 23 years old and the guys today were pretty confident that the furnace/air handling system had never been cleaned out EVER!! Gross!
He said that it is a very good thing that I called and had this done now before the heat comes on in the winter, because the mold would've grown like wildfire with heat blowing through there every day. It just grosses me out and actually scares me since mold can be very dangerous for your lungs and Maggie's lungs are very tiny also. The cost was so high because they had to detach and take out the motor of my furnace system and clean it, clean/vacuum/brush all of the vents throughout the house, treat the whole system with a chemical to kill the mold, then sanitize the whole system with a different chemical to prevent the mold from returning, etc. However, I did get my whole upstairs carpet chemically cleaned with the RotoVac (he included more than the original deal).
Maggie enjoyed helping the technicians, as usual. I think she should be featured on the DIY channel as a home improvement guru since she basically is every repairman's apprentice when they come to my house to do work! It's really cute - she sits next to them and just wants to watch them do the whole job - she's an attentive learner. :)
Here are some pics of my day:
This is the vent in my bedroom - with the cover removed so they can clean it.
This is the cleaning unit that was on for hours - SOOO loud in my house, but it got rid of all the black mold and icky stuff in the air handling system!
3 comments:
WHOA! That was an expensive but worthy bill! I am sure that will help a lot with your allergies and just knowing you will have healthier air makes a big difference too! Thank goodness you thought to do that, what made you think to do that? Allison
That is really quite frightening. I am glad though that you had that checked out and fixed. I know I hate it when you think you have a small project and it turns into something huge. I am so impressed that you thought about having that done. I don't think I did that when I bought my house. What is the next project?
Stacie
PS You have the cleverest titles!
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