Question 1

My house is from the 1920s and the ducts look like they were part of an old gravity furnace. Can those even be cleaned?

Accepted Answer

Usually yes, but they get handled differently. A lot of the Easton Addition and Burlingame Park homes had their original gravity furnace converted at some point, and what's left behind are oversized sheet metal trunks running through the crawlspace that were never sized for a modern blower. Those big trunks clean up fine with proper access ports and agitation. The catch is the oldest systems often have wrap from the asbestos era on the exterior of the plenum or trunk lines. We don't cut, scrape, or disturb suspect wrap. If we see it, we stop and tell you, and testing and abatement go to a licensed abatement contractor before duct work continues.

Question 2

We added a second story and the upstairs vents behave nothing like the downstairs ones. Is that a duct cleaning problem?

Accepted Answer

Partly, and it's one of the most common things we find in Burlingame. Remodels and second-story additions here typically graft flexible duct through the attic onto the original metal system in the crawlspace. You end up with a hybrid that leaks at the transitions, has long flex runs with sags and kinks, and pulls unevenly between floors. Cleaning removes the debris, but if the upstairs is weak or dusty again within months, the cause is usually disconnected flex, a crushed run behind insulation, or an unsealed joint where the new work met the old. We'll tell you which one you're dealing with rather than just cleaning it again.

Question 3

What actually makes our ducts dirty here?

Accepted Answer

A few things specific to this area. The mature eucalyptus, oak and street-tree canopy loads the air with pollen and fine organic debris from spring into early summer, and that gets pulled in through return leaks and settles in the trunk lines. On the bayfront side, salt-laden marine air corrodes older sheet metal and register hardware over time. And the crawlspaces under the older homes stay damp straight through the rainy season, so any duct running down there with a loose joint is pulling humid crawlspace air with that musty smell into the house. If your system only smells off in winter, that's almost always the crawlspace.

Question 4

How long does a job here take, and can you do it same day?

Accepted Answer

Same-day is sometimes possible, more often for the postwar homes in the flats toward Millbrae and Broadway, where the systems tend to be straightforward and the duct layout is simpler. The older Craftsman, Tudor and Mediterranean homes take longer to schedule and longer to do, because we need crawlspace access, there may be multiple access points to cut and seal, and we want time to look at the system before we commit to an approach. Call early in the day and we'll tell you honestly whether yours is a same-day job or needs a proper slot.

Question 5

What drives the cost up or down on a Burlingame house?

Accepted Answer

The age and condition of the system matters more than square footage. A 1940s or 50s home in the flats with one intact system is on the simpler end. The older homes push higher for real reasons: oversized gravity-era trunks take more time to clean properly, hybrid attic-flex-over-crawlspace-metal setups mean two different access strategies, tight or damp crawlspaces slow the work, and a second-story addition often means a second air handler. If we find suspect wrap on the old trunks, that part isn't ours to touch and goes to an abatement contractor separately. We walk the system first and explain what's driving the number before you decide anything.

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