In December, a member of the HVAC cleaning industry published a white paper that was admittedly a rather short read, even for someone not familiar with our industry: Effects of Negative Air Duct Cleaning on Flex Ducts. This has triggered frustration and confusion from members of our industry as to whether or not our trade organization NADCA supports the claims within the document. NADCA was in no way involved with the development or review of this paper and does not support the statement that negative air cannot and should not be used to clean flex duct because of the damage it can cause. It is NADCA’s position that this statement is simply untrue
Click here to read NADCA’s full Response.
You can read the white paper here (it wont take long). In reality, one of the publishers of this White Paper is an equipment manufacturer. He is trying to convince the industry that the most widely-recognized cleaning method, negative pressure, is dangerous so that more contractors will be lead to find and purchase his own product. It’s a conflict of interest in the biggest of ways.
Over the years, we have cleaned 1000’s of feet of flex ducting, both with portable electric collection systems and large truck-mounted vacuum systems. Issues can arise for sure, but negative pressure is not the culprit. What flex duct requires, is an expert to evaluate its condition and cleanability before sending equipment down there like a bull-in-a-china-shop. That is where our ASCS and CVI Certifications through NADCA come into play, along with our 25+ years of experience.