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 San Lorenzo
Air duct cleaning in San Lorenzo typically costs $380-$640 for a full system on a standard Bohannon-era ranch, and most jobs are completed in a single visit. That price includes both supply and return runs, done with HEPA-filtered negative pressure, not a shop-vac attached to a register. If you live in the Village or along Bockman Road, our crews know your floor plan before they arrive, and they’ll hand you a written price before any panel comes off. Call (806) 606-6902 to schedule a walkthrough.
Why CleanRun Air Duct Cleaning Is San Lorenzo’s Preferred Air Duct Cleaning Company
San Lorenzo is a town where almost every house on a given block was built the same year, by the same builder, with the same duct layout. That level of consistency means a cleaning company either knows the Bohannon floor plan or it doesn’t. We do. Tomas Reyes, who leads our crews, can tell you where the return-air box sits in a 1952 rancher off Via Manzanas before he opens the hall closet door. Our Air Duct Cleaning team has worked enough homes between Hesperian Boulevard and the San Lorenzo Creek that the job is almost rote, which means fewer surprises and a tighter scope of work.
Every San Lorenzo job gets a documented photo record of every duct run, before and after. Not a summary. Not a technician’s assurance. Photographs you can open and compare. That’s been our standard since 2013, and it’s the only way to know whether the work was actually done. We also put the 365-Day Done Right Promise in writing on every job: if the work isn’t right, we make it right.
Our crews are background-checked, uniformed, and identified by name before they step onto your property. That’s Haven Standard Clause 3: Verified Crews. No subcontractors, no anonymous vans.
Our Air Duct Cleaning Services in San Lorenzo
Residential Duct Cleaning
Full system cleaning for the 2-3 bedroom tract homes that define San Lorenzo’s housing stock. We run HEPA-filtered negative pressure (a sealed vacuum system that pulls debris out rather than blowing it around) through both supply and return ducts, clean the plenum (the main distribution box above the air handler), and inspect every register boot. In Bohannon-era homes, the register boot is the sheet-metal fitting connecting the duct to the floor or wall opening. In San Lorenzo, these boots are often the first joint to separate in moist crawl spaces, so we check each one during the cleaning, not just the trunk line.
Commercial Duct Cleaning
San Lorenzo’s commercial buildings along Hesperian and Lewelling include a handful of 1960s and 1970s medical offices, storefronts, and light-industrial spaces retrofitted with package units and rooftop HVAC. Commercial duct cleaning here focuses on return-air plenums that pull from drop-ceiling cavities, plus supply runs that accumulate years of building dust, paper fibers, and in some cases rodent activity. We schedule commercial work in San Lorenzo during off-hours when possible, and every commercial job ends with a written scope and photo record, same as residential.
Supply Duct Cleaning
Supply ducts carry conditioned air from the air handler to each room. In a 1950s San Lorenzo rancher, those supply lines are typically early flex-duct branches or sheet-metal runs that have sagged and collapsed at the elbows. A supply-only cleaning addresses what you breathe: dust, fiberglass particles from degraded duct liner, and allergens that accumulate along the run. We clean supply ducts with a rotating brush paired with negative pressure, so debris is extracted at the point of disturbance, not pushed further down the line.
Return Duct Cleaning
Homes in San Lorenzo need return duct cleaning more than almost anywhere else in the East Bay, and the reason is specific: the original return-air boxes in Bohannon tract homes are undersized for modern blower motors, and they sit directly above damp crawl-space soil. That combination pulls moist, spore-laden air into the return duct whenever the system runs. We clean return runs as a dedicated pass, not as an afterthought, and we inspect the return boot at the crawl-space connection for separation. That joint is the single most common air quality failure we find in the village grid streets, and cleaning it properly means removing the debris, sealing the connection, and documenting it with photos.
Full System Cleaning
A full system clean in San Lorenzo means supply and return ducts, plenum, blower motor and housing, evaporator coil (if accessible), register boots, and a post-clean video inspection. This is what we recommend for any pre-1956 home that has no documented cleaning record. Full system cleaning on a standard San Lorenzo rancher takes four to six hours with a two-person crew.
Video Inspection
Our video inspection is a small camera run through the trunk line and branches before and after cleaning. In Bohannon-era homes, the before footage often shows what we expect: a 3-inch debris build-up at the first elbow, a disconnected flex section behind the hall closet, rust bloom on the return-air box. The after footage shows the same angles with the debris gone and the connection sealed. We hand you both. This is the evidence that separates a real clean from vacuum noise, and it’s included as a standard deliverable on every job.
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 San Lorenzo
We work on all residential HVAC brands common in San Lorenzo tract homes, but our equipment roster is what matters for the cleaning itself. We run Rotobrush rotating-brush systems for supply runs, Nikro HEPA negative-air machines for containment, and Abatement Technologies HEPA vacuums for contact work. These are professional-grade tools you can look up independently before agreeing to a price. We don’t use portable shop-vacs, and we don’t rent equipment by the day. The gear arrives clean, sealed, and ready for the specific duct layout in your home.
Common Air Duct Cleaning Problems We See in San Lorenzo Homes
- Return boot separation at the crawl-space connection. The original return-air boxes in 1944-1955 Bohannon homes were never vapor-sealed. Decades of settling, rodent traffic, and seasonal moisture have pulled the boot away from the trunk in most pre-1956 homes we inspect. This pulls crawl-space air directly into your return duct.
- Collapsed flex-duct branches in low crawl spaces. San Lorenzo’s pier-and-beam foundations leave duct runs close to bare soil. Early flex-duct materials degrade in that moisture, then collapse, starving rooms of airflow. Cleaning a collapsed run without replacing the flex section does nothing for system performance.
- Undersized return-air boxes behind hall closets. The original Bohannon floor plan used a single small return box for the entire house. Modern blower motors pull harder than 1950s-era fans, which means the return system runs negative and drags in air from wherever it can, including the crawl space and wall cavities.
- Mold growth on the duct liner nearest the air handler. The fog that funnels through the Hayward hills gaps leaves San Lorenzo crawl spaces damp from December through March. Internal duct liner near the air handler absorbs that moisture, then supports mold growth. Mechanical source removal removes the contaminated liner surface; a fogging treatment does not.
Pricing for Air Duct Cleaning in San Lorenzo, CA
A full system cleaning in San Lorenzo runs $380-$640 for a standard 2-3 bedroom Bohannon-era ranch. That’s supply and return ducts, plenum, blower housing, register boots, and video inspection. Supply-only cleaning runs $220-$340. Return-only cleaning runs $180-$280. Full system with duct sealing (repairing separated joints and replacing collapsed flex sections) runs $580-$920 depending on the number of runs and access difficulty. Commercial duct cleaning in San Lorenzo starts at $0.18-$0.30 per square foot of conditioned space.
The biggest cost variable in San Lorenzo is access: whether your crawl space is a 24-inch clear height or a 14-inch belly-crawl. Low crawls slow the work and add to the labor. Every quote is written, itemized, and delivered before any work starts. That’s Haven Standard Clause 1, and it’s not negotiable. Call (806) 606-6902 for a written estimate.
We Also Serve Cities Near San Lorenzo
Our San Lorenzo crews regularly work across the Alameda County plain. We serve Castro Valley, San Leandro, Union City, and Oakland with the same written pricing, photo documentation, and 365-Day Done Right Promise. If you’re in a neighboring city and the duct layout looks different from the Bohannon pattern, the scope changes accordingly. The standard doesn’t.
Serving San Lorenzo, CA - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the San Lorenzo 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 San Lorenzo
The return ducts in 1950s Bohannon homes take air from the house and send it back to the air handler, but the return-air box sits directly over the crawl space, and the original installation never vapor-sealed the connection. Crawl-space air always carries more moisture and mold spores than living-space air, so the return side sees the heaviest microbial load. When the boot separates from the trunk, which is extremely common after 70 years of settling and rodent pressure, the return duct essentially breathes crawl-space air. Mechanical source removal with HEPA negative pressure removes the contaminated debris; the connection should then be sealed. Call (806) 606-6902 to schedule an inspection.
No. With proper mechanical cleaning and joint sealing, most San Lorenzo homes can go three to five years between cleanings, even with the seasonal fog. The fog itself doesn’t enter the ducts directly unless the return boot is separated or there are open joints in the trunk line. What the fog does is keep crawl-space humidity high from December through March, which feeds mold growth on any exposed duct liner and speeds up flex-duct degradation. If your return system has been sealed and cleaned, the fog is mostly a pest for your subfloor, not your ductwork. A video inspection will show whether moisture is actually entering the runs.
In most San Lorenzo homes, no. A fogging sanitiser inside a duct run that still has a separated return boot or a moisture source in the crawl space will mask odor for a few weeks and then fail. The microbial source is not the air; it’s the debris and the moisture feeding it. Mechanical source removal removes the material. Sealing the boot removes the moisture pathway. Fogging a humid duct run without addressing the mechanical failures is an upsell that doesn’t solve the problem. We don’t include fogging as a standard service, and we’ll tell you if it would help or hurt before you spend the money.
The giveaway is the register boot at the crawl-space connection and the blower motor condition. In an untouched 1950s system, we see a dense, caked debris layer at the first elbow behind the wall register, fiberglass particles from degraded duct liner, and rust bloom on the blower wheel from years of moist salt-laden air. The video inspection shows it in ten seconds. Homeowners can also look at the hall closet return box: if the metal is sweating or speckled with black dots around the seams, that’s mold on the interior liner, and the system has likely never had source removal. We’ll show you the before footage and let you decide.
Yes, and it’s a known problem. Bohannon-era homes were designed for gravity furnaces or low-velocity fans before central forced-air became standard. The return-air boxes are undersized for modern blower motors, and the supply runs are often 5-inch or 6-inch branches where a modern system would use 7-inch or 8-inch. That means your 1950s system will always move less air than a 1990s house of the same square footage. Cleaning improves airflow within the existing design, but it won’t turn an undersized return system into a modern one. A proper sealed-and-cleaned system still performs better than a dirty one, and the video inspection will show you exactly what you’re working with.
Get Your San Lorenzo Duct System Cleaned Right
If you own a Bohannon-era home in San Lorenzo, you’re working with a duct system that was installed before central air was really finished being invented. The defects are predictable, the fix is mechanical, and the evidence is photographic. We’ll give you a written price before any work starts, clean every run with professional-grade equipment, and hand you a documented photo record when the job is done. If the work isn’t right, we make it right. Written, not promised.
Call (806) 606-6902 to book a walkthrough with Tomas Reyes and the CleanRun crew.
Written by Tomas Reyes, Owner at CleanRun Air Duct Cleaning, serving San Lorenzo since 2013.
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