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 New Haven
Air duct cleaning in New Haven typically costs between $450 and $1,200 for a full system, with most single-family homes landing in the $500-$800 range. The price depends on how many duct runs a home has, how accessible the system is, and what the camera inspection finds before we write the quote. If you’re in East Rock, Westville, or Fair Haven, call (806) 606-6902 and we’ll give you a written price before any work starts.
New Haven’s housing stock is different from almost anywhere else in Connecticut. The pre-war triple-deckers and colonials that line Grand Avenue and the streets of The Hill were not built with forced air in mind. They had radiators. When central air and forced-air heat arrived decades later, ducts went wherever they could be squeezed: through narrow crawlspaces, up into sloped attic cavities, and sometimes into the original coal-ash or plaster wall chases themselves. Cleaning those systems properly takes more than a vacuum hose and a fog machine. It takes a camera, written documentation, and a tech who knows what a retrofit looks like from the inside out.
Why CleanRun Air Duct Cleaning Is New Haven’s Preferred Air Duct Cleaning Company
CleanRun has been doing Air Duct Cleaning since 2013, backed by a written 365-Day Done Right Promise on every job. That means if the work isn’t right, we make it right. Not as a courtesy, but as a term we put in writing before the first panel comes off. The promise is part of the H.A.V.E.N. Standard we operate under, alongside written pricing, background-checked technicians, and a documented photo record of every duct run.
We’ve worked in triple-deckers on Grand Avenue, colonials in Westville, and two-families in Fair Haven where shared duct chases cross unit lines. We’re coordinated out of our Hartford office, but our crews serve New Haven directly and know what to expect when they open a plenum in a house built in 1919: dust, sure, but also plaster crumbles, rodent debris, and the occasional discovery that a “duct run” is really a hollowed-out wall cavity with no liner at all.
What we hear most from homeowners around New Haven is that they want to see the inside of their ducts. Not a salesperson’s description of it. So every visit ends with a Documented Photo Record: before and after images of every run, delivered as part of the job. You see what was there. You see what’s gone. You see the register, the elbows, the plenum, not just a general “after” shot of a clean-looking return.
Our Air Duct Cleaning Services in New Haven
Every home in New Haven is a little different, so we structure our Air Duct Cleaning work around what the camera inspection shows. You can book a single service or a full system clean. Here’s what we do most often in this city.
Residential Duct Cleaning
Residential duct cleaning in a New Haven single-family home usually runs $500 to $800 for the full supply and return system. We use negative-pressure extraction with a HEPA-filtered vacuum from brands like Rotobrush and Nikro, which means debris is drawn out of the system under vacuum rather than simply loosened and left to float. For homes near the water in Morris Cove or the annex, where damp air sits against the ducts all summer, we focus on areas where the camera shows visible moisture staining or microbial growth beginning at the seams.
Commercial Duct Cleaning
Commercial duct cleaning in New Haven covers everything from office suites in the medical district to restaurants and multi-unit buildings downtown. The written quote is based on a building walkthrough and a camera inspection, not a flat per-square-foot guess. CleanRun has served commercial properties across Connecticut since 2013 and brings the same documentation standard to every job: written price first, photo record after. We use Abatement Technologies equipment where jobs demand higher static pressure to pull debris from longer, more complex runs.
Supply Duct Cleaning
Supply ducts are the runs that carry conditioned air from the furnace or air handler to each register. In many New Haven homes, the supply side is the part with the most acute failure points, because those ducts run through unconditioned spaces: attics, crawlspaces, spaces behind knee walls. We clean each supply run with professional-grade tools and document the before and after condition. A typical supply-side clean in a New Haven two-family runs between $300 and $550.
Return Duct Cleaning
Return ducts pull air back into the system to be reconditioned. In New Haven pre-war homes, return paths are often the most improvised part of a retrofit. Where a supply line had to be installed, a builder might have simply used an existing wall cavity as the return chase. Cleaning a system like this means not only removing what’s sitting in the cavity, but identifying whether the cavity is actually sealed. Open chases pull air from whatever they touch: neighboring units, crawlspaces, old plaster. We find this in Fair Haven and the Hill constantly.
Full System Cleaning
A full system clean is the only way to confirm that both the supply and return sides have been addressed, which matters in any home where the return chase crosses shared space. In practice, that means most multi-family homes in New Haven should budget for a full system clean rather than a partial one. We’ll tell you plainly if a partial clean is all you need. For a triple-decker with three separate forced-air systems and a shared return chase, we always recommend at least scoping the full picture before quoting. Our camera inspection is part of the estimate.
Video Inspection
Video inspection is the service that tells you what’s actually in the ducts. We run a small camera into the plenum and down each run, and we show you the footage on-site. In a Victorian in Westville, the camera might show a three-inch debris build-up at the first elbow. In a Grand Avenue triple-decker, it once showed a return duct that was open to a neighboring unit’s mouse nest. The footage is yours to keep and we include still frames in the written record.
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 New Haven
We service and clean systems built around Honeywell and Aprilaire components, and we use professional-grade extraction equipment from Rotobrush, Nikro, and Abatement Technologies. We don’t use consumer-grade shop vacs retrofitted for duct work. New Haven homeowners can look up any brand name we put in writing and see exactly what it was designed to do. That’s the point. The equipment matters because the job is not a fogging and it’s not a surface wipe. It’s a physical removal of debris under negative pressure, and the tools have to hold up to the job.
Common Air Duct Cleaning Problems We See in New Haven Homes
- Unlined wall cavities used as return chases. In homes where forced air was retrofitted into houses originally built for radiator heat, returns often run through old plaster or coal-ash chases. What comes out is not just dust: it’s crumbled plaster, rodent debris, and building material that has sat there since the conversion. A fogger cannot remove this. It has to be physically extracted.
- Moisture and microbial growth near the Sound. New Haven sits directly on Long Island Sound, and summer humidity regularly runs above 80% in neighborhoods like City Point and the Annex. That moisture infiltrates leaky duct runs and accelerates mold colonization far more aggressively than in inland Connecticut. We look for this during the camera inspection and show you what we find.
- Shared duct chases crossing unit boundaries. Fair Haven and The Hill are full of two-families and triple-deckers where one unit’s duct path runs through or alongside another unit’s space. One unit’s mouse problem or moisture issue becomes the neighbor’s air quality problem. Cleaning only one unit leaves the shared chase untouched and the contamination keeps returning.
- Undersized, improvised flex duct in tight retrofits. When forced air was added to houses built before 1930, the duct runs had to go where they could fit: narrow crawlspaces, sloped attic cavities, dead space behind walls. The result is often flex duct that is too small for the airflow and nearly impossible to reach with standard cleaning tools. We use extended-reach equipment and angled camera heads to access these runs without tearing open walls.
Pricing for Air Duct Cleaning in New Haven, CT
A full system clean in a New Haven single-family home generally runs $500 to $800. A supply-only clean in a small city apartment or a compact cape in the Beaver Hills area runs $300 to $425. A full clean in a triple-decker with three systems and a shared return chase typically lands between $1,000 and $1,500 depending on what the camera shows and whether chase sealing is needed. Commercial buildings are priced per walkthrough, not per vent.
We don’t do per-vent pricing and we don’t run coupon specials. What we do is give a written quote before work starts. If a competitor quoted you a figure and you want to compare, bring the estimate and we’ll put our number next to it in writing, free. Call (806) 606-6902 and ask for a written estimate. You’ll get the number before we schedule the work, and we’ll show you what’s in your ducts before we ask you to pay for anything.
We Also Serve Cities Near New Haven
In addition to our work across Air Duct Cleaning in New Haven, our crews serve East Haven, West Haven, Hamden, and Cheshire. We bring the same written-price standard and the same photo documentation to every job, whether the house is a waterfront colonial in East Haven or a 1950s ranch in Hamden.
Serving New Haven, CT - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the New Haven 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 New Haven
Because the duct chases in pre-war triple-deckers often cross unit boundaries. A return duct in one unit may actually draw air through an unlined plaster cavity that is also open to the neighboring unit. If we clean only one unit and leave the shared chase untouched, the contamination from the adjacent unit re-enters the clean system within weeks. Whole-building cleaning addresses the shared pathways. In practice, we inspect first and then recommend either a full building clean or a room-by-room scope based on what the camera shows. If you’re a landlord in Fair Haven or the Hill, call (806) 606-6902 and request a shared-chase inspection.
Humidity near Long Island Sound regularly tops 80% in summer, and that moist air gets pulled into unsealed duct chases in New Haven’s older homes. Ducts in inland cities like Hartford or Waterbury dry out between rain events. Ducts in New Haven often stay damp for weeks at a time, which accelerates microbial growth and causes fine dust to bond to duct surfaces. A simple blower pass won’t lift that adhered layer. This is where source removal with HEPA-filtered negative pressure plus physical agitation makes the difference. The humidity also means we look harder at returns and the areas around registers near exterior walls.
Expect the debris to be structural, not just dusty. Crumbled plaster, rodent nesting material, and fragments of century-old building material come out of these chases. The cleaning requires extended-reach agitation tools and a camera to verify that the cavity was actually cleaned from end to end, not just at the register opening. In some cases, if the camera shows the chase is open to another space, we’ll recommend sealing it before cleaning. That’s a separate written line item on the quote. You’ll see the before and after photos in the Documented Photo Record. This is not work a fogging service can do. Fogging does not remove debris; it only masks odor.
In newer single-family homes, return ducts are usually dedicated sheet-metal runs that are sealed from the surrounding structure. In New Haven pre-war homes, return paths are often improvised: a wall cavity, a chase around a chimney, an old coal chute. Those improvised returns pull air from unconditioned, sometimes soil-adjacent spaces. Cleaning the return is critical because whatever is in the return path is pulled directly into the blower and circulated into every room in the house every time the system cycles. We prioritize return duct inspection during every New Haven job. If the return is unlined and contaminated, we photograph it and include the finding in the written report.
Older New Haven homes with retrofitted systems typically take 4 to 6 hours for a full clean, compared to 2 to 3 hours for a modern single-family house in the suburbs. The cost difference comes from accessibility: attic runs with limited headroom, crawlspace access points that require special equipment, and chases that need camera inspection and possible sealing. A full clean in a pre-war New Haven home generally runs $600 to $1,200. The written quote will show exactly what we found and what we did. Call (806) 606-6902 and ask for a written estimate: we’ll put the number in writing before any work is scheduled, and the camera inspection is part of the quote.
What You Should Actually Pay For in New Haven
Here’s the honest part. There are two services being sold as “duct cleaning” in New Haven. One is source removal: a HEPA-filtered negative-pressure system pulling debris physically out of the duct runs. This is what we do. The other is fogging: a mist of sanitizer blown into the ducts while the debris stays exactly where it is. In New Haven’s unlined retrofitted chases, where the debris is often crumbled plaster and rodent nesting material, fogging is not just ineffective. It’s misleading. The sanitizer cannot reach through a three-inch debris layer to touch the duct walls, and it does nothing to remove the physical material. You pay for a smell and a fog.
The camera doesn’t lie. Before we do any work, we run a video inspection and show you what’s actually in the runs. If your ducts are clean and don’t need service, we’ll tell you that and charge for the inspection only. But if the camera shows a return chase full of plaster dust and mouse debris, like the one we found in a triple-decker on Grand Avenue, that’s a physical removal job. That’s why we exist.
We are independently owned and operated under the H.A.V.E.N. Standard, led by Tomas Reyes. The license number is published on our main page, not buried in a footer. Every tech is background-checked and uniformed, and every job ends with a written report and the 365-Day Done Right Promise. If it’s not right, we make it right. In writing.
We serve the whole of New Haven, including East Rock, Westville, Fair Haven, the Hill, Beaver Hills, Morris Cove, City Point, and the Annex. Call (806) 606-6902 to request a written estimate. You’ll get a price before we schedule, and a photo record when we leave.
Written by Tomas Reyes, Owner at CleanRun Air Duct Cleaning, serving New Haven since 2013.