After getting pummeled with pollen through March and April, my nose and lungs were ready to give up once May rolled around. I thought my breathing would ease up and get better but my problems stayed. I was constantly wheezing and coughing in the mornings and often unable to breathe through my nose at all. I had both my air handler and my condenser outside thoroughly cleaned. This helped a little, but it wasn’t enough. My boss noticed my perpetual breathing issues and asked me about what I’ve been doing to mitigate them and when I told him about getting my HVAC cleaned he interrupted me and asked if I had the ductwork cleaned as well. I stopped and realized immediately what he was getting at. I bothered to have the HVAC machinery itself cleaned but neglected the entire ventilation system. That’s where the air particles are traveling non-stop as the system runs, it makes sense that dust or mold buildup in the air handler would be indicative of the same buildup anywhere else in the same system. I found a reputable HVAC supplier that also had special certification that guaranteed they knew how to properly clean ductwork, since as my boss said, there are a ton of ways to do it wrong but only one or two ways to do it right. Consider me stunned because the change was unbelievable. I felt like I could finally breathe again. Now I know, keeping your ductwork clean is as important as keeping the rest of your HVAC system clean. In the end, it’s your respiratory health being affected, so you can’t afford to cut corners.