Is That Smell Coming From My Ducts

One would think that the air duct system is a closed off system meaning nothing besides dirt and dust can enter it. This is not true and more times than you might think homeowners have to deal with animals entering their heating and cooling systems. Once an animal has entered your heating system it is a nice bet that they will not come out. The duct work is a maze with many drops and turns that will leave an animal lost without food or water. In Michigan there are all kinds of small critters that like to travel looking for warm places to live or possibly take a vacation to. We have found squirrels, birds, bats, chipmunks, skunks, mice, rats, ground hogs and even FROGS inside of the duct work system. If you do not believe me visit our main office in Novi, Michigan and one of our staff members will show you the pictures of all of them. We take pictures on all of our jobs and then file them into our system. Most of the time the homeowner is getting a very bad odor inside of their home and usually the ducts are the last place they think to look. Most recently Amistee Air Duct Cleaning professionals were on a job cleaning the duct work system of a two story home. When they opened up the duct system and inspected it they found a dead ground hog that was 15 inches long. The image above is what was inside of the duct system that we cleaned. Many times the smell will not start until the animal has been dead for at least 48 hours. Depending on the size of the animal it may take weeks before the smell vanishes. In this type of situation the only option is to have the air ducts cleaned and then sanitized to kill any type of virus or bacteria that may of been left in the duct work from the dead animal. If you are getting a smell from the duct work vents that you do not remember being there day prior, you might have a dead animal in your ducts. Call Amistee and we can send out one of our duct cleaning specialists to help you restore order to your indoor air.