About us

Several systems, one rate

This is where Scottsdale differs from most of the Valley, and it is worth understanding before anybody quotes you.

A great many houses here run two, three or four separate HVAC systems. Upstairs and down, a guest wing, a casita, sometimes a detached office.

Under per-system pricing, which is what most of this industry uses, that is how a quote triples. Every additional unit is another system charge, and the definition of a system is theirs rather than yours.

Under per-opening pricing it changes nothing. An opening costs $55.25 whichever handler feeds it, so a thirty-opening house on three systems costs exactly what a thirty-opening house on one costs.

The one place system count genuinely matters is the optional fogging, which is priced per HVAC unit. Three systems means $480 rather than $160, and you should decide that deliberately.

Why the pricing works this way

Because this trade has a reputation and the pricing model is most of the reason for it.

The standard approach is an advertised figure low enough to get somebody through the door, an inspection, then a considerably larger number once the registers are off and your morning is gone. It works because the customer cannot verify anything.

In Scottsdale specifically, the multiplier is usually the system count. A house with three units becomes three system charges, under a definition that belongs to the company.

Per-opening pricing removes both problems. You can count vents yourself, and an opening costs the same whichever handler feeds it.

What we will tell you that costs us money

Sometimes you do not need this

House occupied year round, not new, no odor, no dust at the registers, no pets, no rodent evidence, filter changed on time. Leave it. On a house this size that is a four-figure conversation we are talking ourselves out of.

Your filter matters more than we do

A good filter changed on schedule does more for the air in your house than an annual duct cleaning. That argues against our own service and it is true. In a house with three systems it matters three times over, and there is nearly always one nobody has touched.

The health claims are not supported

The EPA's position is that duct cleaning has never been shown to prevent health problems. Ours is on its own page.

What we actually do

1. Walk the system with you. Count openings together, look at the filter and the returns, and give a straight read on whether the work is warranted. On plenty of Scottsdale houses it is not.
2. Open it properly. Registers come off so the work happens inside the runs and the trunk rather than the first arm's length anybody could reach from a stepladder.
3. Agitate the material loose. A flexible rod with a whip head runs the length and lifts what has bonded to the duct wall, instead of shifting only what was already free.
4. Take it out of the building. Negative pressure throughout, so whatever comes free leaves rather than resettling in the next room.
5. Registers and grilles cleaned rather than wiped, since the grille is the part you look at every day.
6. Before and after down the same run, so the result is something you see rather than something you are told.

What we are not

Not an HVAC company. If one zone will not cool, if something smells at every cycle, if there is water where it should not be, cleaning ducts will not solve it and we will say so.

Not licensed for mold remediation. Visible growth is a separate trade with separate requirements, and misting over it would cover a problem rather than fix one.

We do not carry certifications we have not earned, and there is no badge on this site that does not mean something.

Scottsdale only

One city, which is why we usually know what we are walking into. A DC Ranch house probably runs three systems and thirty openings. A Troon property may have sat closed since April. A McCormick Ranch system has been running since the seventies.

Old Town · McCormick Ranch · Gainey Ranch · DC Ranch · Silverleaf · Grayhawk · Kierland · Troon North · Troon Village · Desert Mountain · Scottsdale Ranch · Ancala · McDowell Mountain Ranch · Pinnacle Peak · Cactus Corridor · Arcadia Heights · Villa Monterey · Hy-View · Indian Bend · Paradise Park

DC Ranch and Silverleaf · Troon and far north Scottsdale · Old Town Scottsdale · McCormick Ranch and Gainey Ranch · Grayhawk and Kierland · South Scottsdale

Questions