Air Duct & Dryer Vent Cleaning questions from Lee County homeowners
Water got into the air handler during the storm. Can we turn the system back on?
Not until someone has looked. The EPA's guidance is not to run a system you suspect of holding mold, and a flooded air handler or a duct run that sat in water qualifies. The camera inspection, $79, credited toward cleaning, shows what is inside. Runs that held water are usually replaced, not cleaned, and that is priced from the photos before anything is opened up.
We rebuilt after Ian and the registers blow white dust. Why?
Drywall and texture dust from the rebuild. The system ran while the walls went back up, and the fine powder settled in the flex and the plenums. It keeps coming out until it is removed under negative pressure, which a filter change will not do. One full cleaning ends it.
Who is allowed to deal with mold in the ducts?
Small patches on a coil or in a run are handled during the cleaning, with an EPA-registered antimicrobial labeled for HVAC use applied afterward at $99 to $149, only when the camera shows growth. Florida law makes mold growth over 10 square feet the work of a licensed mold remediator, and that license can be looked up on the DBPR search.
What does it cost in Fort Myers?
$395 to $495 for a single-system house, return side and supply side, with any open joints resealed. $250 for each extra system the same day. $129 for the dryer vent alone, $475 to $575 for both together. The price is set from the square footage and the system count when you book.
Our dryer vents under the slab. Can that be cleaned?
Yes. Florida allows 4-inch Schedule 40 PVC for a horizontal run beneath the slab, and a lot of Lee County houses use it. The run is worked from the dryer end and from the outlet, then the airflow is checked. If the pipe has sagged or holds water, rerouting is priced at $150 to $400.
The house sits closed up from spring to fall. What should we check when we get back?
The smell at startup and the registers. Sanibel and Fort Myers Beach had more than half their housing units empty at the 2020 census, and a system that sat in a humid summer can come back musty. A camera look at the coil and one supply run tells you whether it needs cleaning or only a new filter.
What does the Florida code say about dryer vents?
Florida builds to one statewide code, and the Florida Building Code, Residential, 8th edition (2023), in force until the 9th edition takes effect on December 31, 2026, caps a dryer exhaust duct at 35 feet, deducting 5 feet for every tight mitered 90-degree elbow and under 2 feet for a smooth long-radius one. It requires metal duct of at least 28 gauge with joints that are not screwed together, a backdraft damper at the termination and no screen on it, and allows 4-inch Schedule 40 PVC only for a horizontal run beneath the slab.
How often should ducts be cleaned here?
The EPA says to clean when there is a reason rather than on a calendar, and in Lee County the reasons come around on a schedule: every three to five years with pets or allergies, five to seven without, once after any construction or remodel, once in a new home after the builder is done, and once after any hurricane, flood or roof leak that put water in the system.
Do you handle condo and apartment buildings?
Yes. About three in ten of Lee County's roughly 465,000 housing units are in multifamily buildings, rising to about half in Fort Myers and two in three on Fort Myers Beach, and condo and apartment buildings commonly have long or shared dryer vent runs. An annual cleaning with photo documentation is what associations, property managers and their insurers typically ask for. Each vent is photographed at both ends, the per-unit price comes from the vent count and run lengths, and the manager gets a dated report.
Can the blower and coil be cleaned too?
The blower compartment is vacuumed and photographed on every duct job. Cleaning the blower wheel and evaporator coil is a separate service at $249 to $349. Florida law puts any duct cleaning or equipment sanitizing that requires taking the system even partly apart inside the scope of a licensed air-conditioning or mechanical contractor. Opening the air handler to clean the blower wheel and coil is that kind of work, so it is done by or under a state-licensed air conditioning contractor.
Are you licensed and insured?
Florida does not license duct cleaning as its own trade, but state law counts duct cleaning or sanitizing that takes any part of the system apart as air-conditioning contractor work, and mold growth over 10 square feet as work for a licensed mold remediator, so that work goes to license holders you can look up on the state DBPR search. The crew carries general liability insurance, works to the NADCA ACR standard, and sends before-and-after photos.
Square footage, number of systems, and whether water ever reached the air handler. Those answers set the price.