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 Boston
Air duct cleaning in Boston typically costs $380-$710 for a full single-family system and takes four to six hours, including camera inspection before and after. Most jobs we handle in Boston involve retrofit ductwork in pre-war construction, which changes both the method and the time required. If you’re in Dorchester, Jamaica Plain, the South End, or Back Bay, call us at (806) 606-6902 for a written price before anyone touches a panel.
Boston’s housing stock is unlike anywhere else in the country. Triple-deckers and brick rowhouses built between 1870 and 1940 largely predate forced-air heat. When central air arrived decades later, contractors ran duct through stairwell chases, closet floors, and cavities never intended to carry air. That changes what we find inside those ducts. It also means our Air Duct Cleaning crews carry equipment configured for cramped, non-standard runs, not the wide-open trunk lines of suburban basements.
Why CleanRun Air Duct Cleaning Is Boston’s Preferred Air Duct Cleaning Company
Since 2013, our crews have documented more than 52,000 jobs with before-and-after photos of every duct run. That record matters in Boston, where the difference between a real clean and a vacuum through the registers is hidden inside walls. We hand you the camera evidence.
Boston homeowners call us because we publish our pricing. Haven Standard Clause 1 is simple: a written price before any work starts, every time. No exceptions. If a competitor hands you an estimate, bring it to us. We’ll put our number next to it, in writing, at no cost. That’s the Free Second Opinion, and it exists because Boston’s retrofit ductwork often gets misquoted by companies unfamiliar with triple-decker chases and rowhouse floor cavities.
Tomas Reyes leads our Boston crews. Every technician is background-checked, uniformed, and named before arrival. Haven Standard Clause 3: Verified Crews.
Our Air Duct Cleaning Services in Boston
Residential Duct Cleaning
Single-family homes in West Roxbury and Hyde Park have more conventional duct layouts, but the pre-war core of Boston demands a different approach. In a Back Bay rowhouse, the return duct may run under a parlor floor, sharing space with 1910 wiring and plaster debris. We clean every run, photograph the interior, and hand you a documented record. A typical residential job in Boston runs $380-$710.
Commercial Duct Cleaning
Restaurants, offices, and storefronts in Boston present a distinct problem: kitchen exhaust and foot-traffic dust load shared air handlers faster than residential systems. We work nights and weekends to avoid disrupting your business. Commercial quotes are issued as written scopes with line-item pricing, so a property manager knows exactly what is included before approval.
Supply Duct Cleaning
Supply ducts in Boston triple-deckers frequently branch through vertical chases shared with plumbing stacks. Grease vapor rises. Rodents travel the same path. What collects in a supply run off a Dorchester kitchen is not dust; it’s a combination of polymerized oil and particulate that standard brushing misses. We use negative-pressure extraction with agitation tools sized for tight elbow turns, then camera-verify the result.
Return Duct Cleaning
Return ducts in South End rowhouses often run through retrofitted floor cavities. We have found crushed sections where a floor joist was notched during installation and the negative pressure dropped to near zero. The debris keeps blowing in from an unconditioned cavity regardless of how many times the registers are wiped. A return duct clean in an older Boston home runs $190-$330, depending on access.
Video Inspection
Before we start, a camera goes through every accessible run. In Boston, this step catches what you cannot see: disconnected supply lines in stairwell chases, rodent nesting in shared cavities, deteriorated fiberglass liner shedding into the airstream. The camera also verifies the work after extraction. You see the same footage. That’s the Documented Photo Record, included on every visit.
Full System Cleaning
Full system cleaning covers supply and return runs, the plenum, the air handler, and accessible registers. For Boston’s multi-family buildings, we coordinate with owners and tenants to schedule access to each unit’s runs without shutting down a whole building. A full system job in a triple-decker unit typically runs $260-$480.
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 Boston
Our trucks carry equipment from Rotobrush, Abatement Technologies, and Nikro. These are professional-grade extraction systems and inspection cameras, the kind you can look up independently and verify against manufacturer specs. In Boston’s retrofit ductwork, the right tool configuration matters. We stock the brush sizes and agitation heads needed for the tight elbow turns common in triple-decker chases and rowhouse floor cavities.
Common Air Duct Cleaning Problems We See in Boston Homes
- Crushed or disconnected return runs in floor cavities. In South End and Back Bay rowhouses, original floor joists were often notched during retrofit installation. The duct collapses or separates, and the system pulls air from an unconditioned space. We find this on camera and repair the run before cleaning.
- Rodent contamination in shared vertical chases. Triple-deckers in Dorchester and Roxbury route flex duct through chases shared with plumbing and electrical. Grease vapor from kitchen exhausts migrates upward, and rodent activity follows. The result is a contamination load that standard cleaning misses entirely.
- Deteriorating fiberglass duct liner. Many Boston retrofits used internally lined fiberglass duct. Over decades, the liner sheds particulate into the airstream. Proper cleaning includes evaluating liner condition and recommending remediation where it has broken down.
- Disconnected supply runs pulling from stairwell cavities. A routine clean that skips camera inspection will never find the supply duct that separated inside a stairwell chase. Debris keeps blowing into the space, and the customer concludes duct cleaning doesn’t work. The fix is locating the separation and sealing it.
Pricing for Air Duct Cleaning in Boston, MA
Boston market pricing, written plainly, before we start:
| Service | Typical Range |
|---|---|
| Single-family full system clean | $380-$710 |
| Triple-decker unit (full system) | $260-$480 |
| Return duct only (rowhouse) | $190-$330 |
| Supply duct only | $210-$360 |
| Video inspection (standalone) | $95-$160 |
| Duct repair and sealing (per run) | $140-$300 |
Access is the biggest variable in Boston. A return duct under a South End closet floor takes longer to reach than a basement trunk in Hyde Park. Every quote is a single written price per system, agreed before work starts. No per-vent charges. No surprise add-ons. Call (806) 606-6902 for an exact number, or bring a competitor’s written estimate and we’ll put our price next to it.
We Also Serve Cities Near Boston
Our crews work throughout Boston and the immediate metro, including Somerville, Cambridge, Chelsea, and Everett. The same written pricing, the same documented photo record, and the same 365-Day Done Right Promise follow us on every job, in every neighborhood.
Serving Boston, MA - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Boston 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 Boston
Because the vertical chases between units in a triple-decker are shared spaces. Flex duct routed through those chases sits alongside plumbing stacks and electrical runs. Rodents travel those same chases. Kitchen grease vapor rising from lower units deposits oil on the flex duct exterior, and that attracts nesting. The contamination is inside the chase, not inside the living space, so the unit looks clean. We find it with a camera and document it. Call (806) 606-6902 to schedule an inspection.
Atlantic humidity combines with Boston’s long heating season to create repeated condensation cycles inside ductwork. The air handler in a rowhouse basement runs from October through late April, cooling and warming cycles each day. In spring and fall, the damp coastal air enters through outside air intakes and condenses on the inside of cool duct surfaces. That moisture accelerates mold and mildew growth well beyond what inland New England homes experience. Our cleaning process includes evaluating moisture conditions at the plenum and liner.
Yes. In fact, that describes most of the work we do in Boston. The standard agitation tools that work in a suburban basement trunk line will not navigate the tight elbows and narrow chases common in triple-deckers and rowhouses. We configure our Rotobrush systems with brush sizes and extensions built for these constrained runs, and we camera-verify every section. If we cannot access a portion of the duct, we tell you before we start and adjust the written scope.
A crushed or disconnected return duct requires repair, not cleaning. We recently pulled a Rotobrush through a South End rowhouse return duct retrofitted under a closet floor. The camera showed a section crushed where a floor joist had been notched, and negative pressure had dropped to almost nothing. After repairing the crushed run and sealing the joints with mastic, the blower motor stopped laboring and the registers delivered full airflow for the first time in years. Cleaning a disconnected run changes nothing. The fix is structural. We price the repair as a line item before work begins.
Yes, and for a specific reason. In a Boston triple-decker, supply and return runs follow different paths. Supply ducts often travel through shared vertical chases and pick up grease vapor and rodent contamination. Return ducts often run through floor cavities and pick up plaster dust and fiberglass liner debris. The contamination is different, the access is different, and the cleaning approach is different. We price supply and return runs as separate line items so you pay for what each run actually requires, not a flat per-vent number.
Written by Tomas Reyes, Owner at CleanRun Air Duct Cleaning, serving Boston since 2013.