My adventures in Mobile Home duct cleaning!
Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2014 7:38 pm
Our ducts have never been cleaned and are pretty bad, almost embarrassed to post these pictures on here! We have 3 kids and a dog running around so things have been collecting in the ducts, one of those out of site out of mind type things I guess. We have those wonderful fiberglass mobile home ducts so can't really clean them with anything too aggressive or you will destroy them. Most duct cleaning companies won't touch MH ducts due to this. So I set out to clean my own ducts. One way or another they will get cleaned. I've been collecting some things over the last few weeks and did a trial run today to see what works and what doesn't. I figured I would jot down my adventures in order to help others that may be in the same boat as me.
I had bought a homemade sewer camera off ebay years ago and it really isn't that good but does help with things like this. Was able to watch what I was doing with the vac inside the duct on the TV while working. I don't think it cost me too much and it's just a 3/8" pex tubing with the wires ran through it with a camera on the end. So I taped a "fish stick" to the camera head and stuck it down one register and pulled it down to the next one. The fish stick is just a 6' fiberglass rod used to fish electrical wires I bought from HD. This worked but was a little too "floppy". So I'm going to pick up some 1/2" or 3/4" PVC sticks to do the rest of the ducts. They bend pretty good to get in the ducts but also are a little more rigid.
I'm also going to order one of these for my shop vac, http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AJK0B96/ref ... 09Y122PUVB. I used my house vac with it's similar attachment and it was working really good. But I don't want to suck up a ton of crud with the wife's good vacuum or I'll be n some hot water! I have a couple shop vacs so should have plenty of hose to get from register to register. I'm thinking I'm going to make a little "cart" for this to rid on to give more control. Hard to explain but it would be hard to push this brush attachment down the duct and keep it at the right angle so the brushes are making good contact with the duct. So I'm going to make something to help support the brush head and keep it so the brushes are making good contact.
The other thing I bought was a linteater dryer vent cleaner from lowes for about 40 bucks. http://www.lowes.com/pd_37653-59625-RLE ... facetInfo= This came with 12 feet of flexible rods and a couple ends with hard bristles on it. I used this to get most of the crud out of the corners and then used the vacuum to suck the crud up. Worked pretty good.
I also have a softer bristle duster like this one, http://www.homedepot.com/p/Unger-StarDu ... tCLKp5dXT8 that is about 7-8" in diameter. I'm going to try and find a way to attach it to a stick of PVC in order to get some more of the dust out of the duct after I get all the bigger crud out. Will have to wait to see if this works or not.
Overall I'm pretty please with the few feet I did. I'm going to get the rest of the things I need to finish and go from there. Here are some pictures of the before crud and the after. I'll update this thread as I do more. Hopefully this will help others who might want to clean their fiberglass ducts.
I had bought a homemade sewer camera off ebay years ago and it really isn't that good but does help with things like this. Was able to watch what I was doing with the vac inside the duct on the TV while working. I don't think it cost me too much and it's just a 3/8" pex tubing with the wires ran through it with a camera on the end. So I taped a "fish stick" to the camera head and stuck it down one register and pulled it down to the next one. The fish stick is just a 6' fiberglass rod used to fish electrical wires I bought from HD. This worked but was a little too "floppy". So I'm going to pick up some 1/2" or 3/4" PVC sticks to do the rest of the ducts. They bend pretty good to get in the ducts but also are a little more rigid.
I'm also going to order one of these for my shop vac, http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AJK0B96/ref ... 09Y122PUVB. I used my house vac with it's similar attachment and it was working really good. But I don't want to suck up a ton of crud with the wife's good vacuum or I'll be n some hot water! I have a couple shop vacs so should have plenty of hose to get from register to register. I'm thinking I'm going to make a little "cart" for this to rid on to give more control. Hard to explain but it would be hard to push this brush attachment down the duct and keep it at the right angle so the brushes are making good contact with the duct. So I'm going to make something to help support the brush head and keep it so the brushes are making good contact.
The other thing I bought was a linteater dryer vent cleaner from lowes for about 40 bucks. http://www.lowes.com/pd_37653-59625-RLE ... facetInfo= This came with 12 feet of flexible rods and a couple ends with hard bristles on it. I used this to get most of the crud out of the corners and then used the vacuum to suck the crud up. Worked pretty good.
I also have a softer bristle duster like this one, http://www.homedepot.com/p/Unger-StarDu ... tCLKp5dXT8 that is about 7-8" in diameter. I'm going to try and find a way to attach it to a stick of PVC in order to get some more of the dust out of the duct after I get all the bigger crud out. Will have to wait to see if this works or not.
Overall I'm pretty please with the few feet I did. I'm going to get the rest of the things I need to finish and go from there. Here are some pictures of the before crud and the after. I'll update this thread as I do more. Hopefully this will help others who might want to clean their fiberglass ducts.