How Are Air Ducts Cleaned? A Rotating Brush in a Home Gym Register

It opens on a floor register so clogged with dust and debris that the slots are filled in. Then the Airbender bit: Aaron, our duct cleaning technician, in a red headlamp, mask and shoe covers, kneels on the floor of a home gym and feeds a rotating brush on a red hose into a wall register.

The brush spins inside the run and scrubs dust off the duct walls. Once it's loose, the vacuum can carry it out. Without that agitation, a vacuum alone mostly pulls air past dust that's stuck in place.

Gyms are a good room to check. Workouts kick up lint, skin flakes and dust from mats and towels, and it settles near the floor, right where wall and floor registers sit.