Whole-system duct and dryer vent check with before-and-after photos - you see exactly what came out of your vents
That "$99 whole-house special" is a bait ad - the real number appears once they are in your hallway, or the "clean" is a shop-vac at the register. We photograph the inside of your ducts before and after instead.
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AfterFast, Reliable Air Duct Cleaning Across Melrose
Air duct cleaning in Melrose, MA typically runs $390-$680 for a full system on a single-family home, and takes 3-5 hours from setup to final photo walkthrough. We schedule most Melrose jobs within 4-7 business days. If you live on a hillside street near the Middlesex Fells, or in one of the city’s many 1885-1935 homes with retrofitted ductwork, the number on your invoice will reflect what the camera shows inside your runs, not a teaser price that doubles when the van shows up. That’s the whole point of how we work at CleanRun. Call (806) 606-6902 and you’ll get a written price before a single panel comes off.
Why CleanRun Air Duct Cleaning Is Melrose’s Preferred Air Duct Cleaning Company
We’ve been inside hundreds of Melrose homes since Tomas Reyes founded CleanRun in 2013, and the city’s housing stock is unlike what you’ll find two towns over. West Wyoming Avenue Colonials with gravity-furnace conversions. Mount Hood streets where squirrels find their way into unconditioned attic flex runs. Two-family homes on Lynde Street with shared dryer vent stacks. Our technicians know these layouts because we’ve photographed them, mapped them, and documented them job after job. That’s why homeowners from the Horace Mann district to the Fells-facing side streets call us before anyone else.
Every CleanRun job in Melrose ends the same way: a written photo record of every duct run, before and after, delivered as a standard part of the job. You see what we saw. We don’t ask you to trust a vague reassurance. We hand you the images. Haven Standard Clause 1 means a written price before work begins, every time. Clause 3 means background-checked, uniformed, named technicians. And the 365-Day Done Right Promise is in writing on every job, not a marketing line.
Scheduling is coordinated from our Boston office, and crews serve Melrose locally. When you call (806) 606-6902, a live person answers. No phone tree. No “leave a message and we’ll get back to you within 48 hours.” You’ll speak to someone who can tell you what a Melrose hillside job looks like and what it costs.
Our Air Duct Cleaning Services in Melrose
Residential Duct Cleaning
Full-system source removal for single-family homes and condos across Melrose, including the late-Victorian and Colonial Revival stock that dominates neighborhoods near Ell Pond and the downtown. We run negative-pressure extraction with HEPA filtration, agitate every run, and photograph the inside of each duct before and after. The houses we see on Upham Street and Bellevue Avenue were built long before forced air existed as a standard, and their duct runs reflect it: sharp transitions, dead ends, and 50-year-old trunk lines threaded through plaster-wall chases. You get the full record, not a before shot of the worst corner and an after shot of a different duct.
Commercial Duct Cleaning
Small offices, dental practices, daycare centers, and storefronts along Main Street and the Melrose Highlands business district. Commercial jobs in Melrose frequently involve shared building systems, rooftop units, and fire-rating concerns through multiple occupancies. We schedule around your business hours, document every run, and leave you with the same written photo record we give a homeowner. If you manage a property with multiple units or a commercial kitchen exhaust complement, we’ll quote it as one written scope, not a per-vent surprise.
Supply Duct Cleaning
Supply runs are the ones carrying heated or cooled air into your rooms, and in Melrose’s older homes, they’re often the original postwar retrofits, narrow and undersized for modern furnace output. The camera frequently shows an inch or more of packed dust at the first elbow off the plenum, especially on hillside homes where six-month heating seasons run hard from October to April. We clean supply runs with agitation and negative pressure per NADCA standards, and we show you the before and after inside every run we touch.
Return Duct Cleaning
Return ducts pull air back to the furnace, and on Melrose’s Fells-facing streets, they load up faster than supply sides. Tree pollen from the Middlesex Fells, leaf litter from Ravine Road and Mount Hood, and the elevated humidity off the woodland border all get pulled through the return system. If your filter has been catching more than usual, the returns are usually where the camera finds the answer. We clean return runs thoroughly, because a clean return side is what keeps your freshly cleaned supply side from re-contaminating within weeks.
Video Inspection
Before we quote, after we clean, and at any point in between, a camera goes into the ductwork. For older Melrose homes with irregular, retrofitted runs, video inspection is how we locate debris build-up at dead-end transitions, collapsed flex runs, and rodent damage that a visual check at the register would miss entirely. You get the footage as part of your job record. If we find damage that needs repair, we show you the image and quote the repair in writing.
Full System Cleaning
Supply and return runs, plenums, blower assembly, and registers. This is the job most Melrose homeowners actually need, especially in the 1885-1935 stock where piecemeal retrofits created dozens of dead ends. Full system cleaning is where the before-and-after difference is unmistakable. We photograph every duct run, not a sample of three. The 52,000+ homes we’ve served since 2013 each received a written price and a documented photo record. Yours will too.
This page covers Air Duct Cleaning in detail for homeowners in the greater Boston area. If you’re comparing our service to what you’ll find elsewhere in the city, read through the full scope and call us with questions.
What happens when you call
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A real person answersNo phone trees - you reach a local pro.
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You get an upfront price rangeHonest numbers before anyone is dispatched.
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A background-checked tech heads outLicensed & insured, dispatched right away.
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You approve before work beginsNothing starts until you say go.
BeforeAfterTrusted Brands We Service in Melrose
We work with equipment that’s independently verifiable, not a mystery machine from the back of a van. On Melrose jobs, you’ll see Rotobrush and Nikro agitation equipment, Abatement Technologies HEPA-filtered negative-air setups, and we regularly clean systems built around Honeywell and Aprilaire filtration components. When a Melrose home has a Guardsman UV or filtration unit in the plenum, we know how to clean around it without damaging the unit or voiding a manufacturer warranty. You can look up every brand we use before you agree to a price. We’d rather you do that. It saves everyone time.
Common Air Duct Cleaning Problems We See in Melrose Homes
- Rodent-breached flex runs near the Middlesex Fells. On hillside streets like Mount Hood and the Ravine Road corridor, squirrels and mice chew through flexible duct insulation in unconditioned attics at a rate we almost never see in Malden or Everett. The breach exposes the air handler to attic dust and lets conditioned air escape into unconditioned space. Camera inspection is the only way to find it without tearing open ceilings.
- Gravity-furnace conversions with dead-end trunk lines. Melrose’s 1885-1935 homes were built for steam radiators or gravity hot-air systems. When forced air came later, contractors threaded trunk lines through original wall chases never engineered for airflow. Debris settles at the dead ends, and when registers open after a long heating season, you get a sudden musty blast. The camera often shows a 3-inch build-up at the first elbow, exactly where theory says it should be.
- Shared dryer vent stacks in two-family homes. A cottage on West Wyoming Avenue with a neighbor’s lint clog on the other side of the wall can create backpressure on your side of the run. You can’t clean one side in isolation. This is a Melrose reality most flat-rate quotes ignore. We scope both sides, photograph the blockage, and write the price before we start.
- Restricted curbside parking on postwar-edge streets. The smaller capes and ranches on Melrose’s outer edges have tight street parking, which means longer hose runs from our truck to the house. Some crews skip full negative-pressure setup when the house is hard to reach. We don’t. The equipment comes in, the photo record comes out, and the job is done per the standard, not per the parking.
Pricing for Air Duct Cleaning in Melrose, MA
A full system cleaning for a single-family Melrose home runs $390-$680. Homes under 1,500 square feet with simple layouts, like postwar capes off Lynn Fells Parkway, fall on the lower end. A 1915 Colonial on West Wyoming Avenue with three floors, retrofitted trunk lines, and a finished attic starts higher. Two-family homes with shared vent stacks typically run $520-$800 depending on access. Commercial systems are quoted by the written scope after a walkthrough.
What changes the number is what the camera finds: length of runs, number of dead ends, visible build-up, and whether there’s rodent damage or sagging at transition points. That’s why we don’t quote flat rates. A flat rate only makes sense if every house is the same size with the same duct layout. In Melrose, that’s almost never true. We deliver a written price before work starts under Haven Standard Clause 1. Bring us another written estimate and we’ll put our number next to it in writing, free, under our Free Second Opinion policy. Call (806) 606-6902 and we’ll schedule your walkthrough.
We Also Serve Cities Near Melrose
Beyond our work in Air Duct Cleaning in Melrose, our crews regularly serve homeowners in Malden, Saugus, Wakefield, and Everett. If you’re on the Malden border near Oak Grove, or just across the Saugus line off Route 1, we can schedule you under the same written-price, documented-photo standard. Call us and we’ll tell you which crew covers your street.
Serving Melrose, MA - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Melrose area and know this community well. Use the map below to see our service coverage - if you’re nearby, we can almost certainly help.
FAQs - Air Duct Cleaning in Melrose
Yes, and the reason is measurable. Homes on the Fells-facing hillside streets like Mount Hood and Ravine Road sit directly against the woodland border, where tree pollen, leaf litter, and elevated humidity load return-air systems faster than in the flatter, less-wooded center of the city. We see return filters on Fells-side homes looking like fur after two months. Most Melrose homes should be inspected every 3-5 years, but hillside homes near the Fells often benefit from cleaning every 2-3 years, especially if the home has original 1920s-era trunk lines or unconditioned attic flex runs. The camera doesn’t lie. Call (806) 606-6902 and we’ll show you exactly what’s in your returns.
No, and any company that tells you otherwise is either guessing or skipping half the job. A shared dryer vent stack means both sides feed into the same riser. If the neighbor’s side has a lint clog at the junction, backpressure pushes lint and moisture back through your side of the run. Cleaning only your side leaves the blockage in place and puts the problem back on you within weeks. We coordinate both units, photograph the junction from each side, and write one scope that covers the full stack. If one neighbor wants it cleaned and the other doesn’t, we’ll quote what we can actually access and tell you exactly what remains uncleaned. No mystery, no partial clean billed as complete.
It can be, and in Melrose’s older homes, there’s a specific likely cause. Houses from 1915 were built for gravity hot air or steam, and the forced-air retrofits added later often used trunk lines with sharp transitions and dead ends. In winter, the furnace runs harder and longer, pushing air past those restrictions. In summer, the air handler moves cooler air at lower velocity, and those same restrictions become more noticeable as weak airflow at the far registers. The camera tells us if it’s build-up, a collapsed flex section, or an undersized trunk. We’ve found 3-inch debris build-ups at the first elbow off the plenum that only made themselves felt as uneven seasonal airflow. You can see the image. Call (806) 606-6902 for a video inspection quote in writing.
Because the house on Ravine Road is not the house on a flat lot in Malden. On Melrose’s hillside streets, trucks need to run longer hoses from street level to the house. Attics are often unconditioned and reachable only through narrow scuttle hatches. Flex runs are frequently breached by squirrels or mice, adding a repair step that flat-rate quoters either skip or “discover” as a surprise upcharge. A flat rate assumes a standard house. Melrose’s hillside stock is not standard. Our written price is based on the camera view, the run lengths, and what we can see before we start. That’s the only way to write an honest number. We quote it before we work, and the price doesn’t change mid-job.
Ask for it in writing, and ask for photographs of the air handler before and after. Many condo buildings in Melrose share a central air handler with individual zone dampers off the trunk. If a cleaning company quotes “all your ducts” and never mentions the shared air handler, they’re probably not planning to touch it. That’s the most important component to clean, because it’s where debris collects and where the camera can verify the cleaning actually happened. Our condo jobs in Melrose always include the air handler in the written scope. You get photos of the blower assembly, the plenum, and the zones we cleaned. Haven Standard Clause 1 applies: written price before work begins. Call (806) 606-6902 and ask us to walk the building and write the scope.
The $79 voucher buys you a visit, not a cleaning. We’ve seen the invoices from those jobs: the initial coupon gets a crew in the door, and the final bill often lands between $900 and $1,400 once the “necessary” add-ons appear. We don’t work that way. Our written price covers the actual work, and you agree to it before a panel comes off. On a Fells-facing side street off Ravine Road, our tech found a squirrel-nibbled flex-duct sleeve in an unconditioned attic exposing the air handler to attic dust, with the trunk line downstream sagging 15 degrees at a plaster-wall chase transition. Using camera inspection and agitation tools per NADCA standards, we performed source removal under negative pressure with HEPA filtration, then taped and re-hung the run to stabilize airflow before blower motor testing confirmed a drop in supply-side pressure fluctuations. That’s the kind of work that never fits inside a $79 coupon. You pay one written price, and you leave with a photo record of every duct run. The (806) 606-6902 number connects you to a live person. Call and ask us to put a number in writing.
Written by Tomas Reyes, Owner at CleanRun Air Duct Cleaning. Founded in 2013, 52,000+ homes served, every one with a written price and a documented photo record.