Questions and answers

All five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island.

Call or text (917) 983-1283 with your ZIP code and a line about the problem. For dryer vents, text DRYER and your ZIP code.

Lint is flammable, and a blocked vent traps heat. The U.S. Fire Administration reports about 2,900 home clothes dryer fires a year, and failure to clean is the leading cause. Dryer vent cleaning removes the lint from the whole line.

NFPA 211, the national standard for chimneys and vents, calls for an inspection at least once a year. A chimney inspection tells you whether it also needs sweeping or repair.

Yes. We work in houses, apartments, multi-family buildings and businesses, including PTAC units and shared laundry rooms.

There is no single schedule that fits every home. Pets, renovation work and a filter that does not fit all fill ducts faster, while a home with a well-fitted filter can go a long time. A look inside tells you more than a calendar does.

The method is set up to avoid that. The ducts stay under suction while they are brushed, and each register stays covered until its run is finished, so loosened dust is drawn to the vacuum.

We look at both during the inspection and show you what we find. If they are coated, we quote coil cleaning and blower cleaning along with the ductwork, because clean ducts connected to a dusty air handler do not stay clean.

Clear a path to the furnace or air handler, and move rugs or furniture that sit on floor registers and return grilles. Keep pets in a closed room while the registers are off.

No. Kitchen hood and grease exhaust cleaning is a different trade with its own methods. In a restaurant we clean the heating and cooling ductwork that serves the dining room, the office and other space outside the cooking line.

The coil is looked at during a duct cleaning, but cleaning it is separate work: the cabinet is opened, the coil is washed and the drain is cleared. It is often done on the same visit.

Taking it out gives the cleanest result, because the cupped side of the blades faces inward and is hard to reach in place. Some units, especially ones built into tight closets or ceilings, do not let the assembly out without major work. Those are cleaned in place.

No. For ordinary household dust, air duct cleaning is the whole job. Disinfecting is for ducts with a specific history: mold, water, pests or an odor that cleaning alone did not clear.

Usually because the condensate line is blocked. The coil pulls water out of humid air, the pan catches it and the line carries it to a drain. When slime plugs the line, the pan fills and overflows. Switch the cooling off, because the water keeps coming while the system runs.

It helps, and you should keep doing it. But the filter is only the first layer. Fine dust gets past it to the coil, the wheel and the pan, where it stays damp and cannot be reached without taking the unit out of the wall.

No. The lamp removes nothing, so whatever dust is in the system stays there. Its job is to help keep a cleaned coil cleaner for longer, which is why it is installed after a cleaning and not instead of one.

After all the dusty work is finished: demolition, sanding, cutting and floor refinishing. Before you move back in is ideal, and just after is fine. If the ducts are cleaned while sanding is still going on, they fill up again.

For most households, once a year. Clean it sooner if drying times are creeping up, if several people share one dryer, or if the vent run is long or has several turns.

Check the airflow at the outside outlet while the dryer runs. If it is weak, or the flap barely opens, the restriction is in the vent. A dryer that is hot to the touch and clothes that are still damp after a full cycle point the same way.

You can and should clean the lint screen after every load and vacuum around the hose connection. The buildup that causes trouble sits deeper in the line, past the reach of a hand or a household vacuum.

No. Finding the outlet is part of the visit. If your line turns out to join a shared shaft, we tell you, because cleaning that part is usually arranged through the building.

It depends on how many loads the machines run, so there is no single answer. A busy laundromat needs it far more often than a salon drying towels. After the first cleaning, the amount of lint that came out tells you a lot about the right interval.

Access is arranged by you, the way your building handles any in-unit work: the resident is home, or the super lets us in. Units we cannot enter are noted, so that you can decide whether to schedule a return visit.

It can be the result of one. Dryers have a safety cutoff that stops the heat when the machine overheats, and a blocked vent is a common reason for it to trip. Clearing the vent removes the cause, but the cutoff itself may then need replacing by an appliance technician.

Not with ordinary cloth duct tape. Dryer heat dries out its adhesive and the patch lets go. Joints are sealed with foil tape, and a hose that is torn or crushed is better replaced than patched.

When the problem is the line itself and not one part of it: plastic or vinyl hose, foil hose hidden in a wall, a route with more length and turns than it needs, or damage in several places. A single loose joint or a crushed connector on an otherwise sound metal line is a repair.

Have it looked at every year. Whether it needs sweeping depends on how much you burned: a fireplace used most winter evenings usually does, and one lit only a few times may not. A boiler or furnace flue needs the same yearly look, because it runs all season.

Yes. A heating flue is swept from the cleanout at its base or from the roof, and the pipe that connects the appliance to the chimney is checked too. Many New York chimneys carry both kinds of flue in one stack.

Not until someone has looked up the flue. Fireplaces in older New York houses are sometimes blocked, unlined or sealed at the top, and none of that shows from the room. A sweep tells you what you have.

Often, but not with brushing alone. Glaze needs slower mechanical work or a treatment that breaks it down first. If the liner under it turns out to be damaged, relining may be part of the answer, and we show you photos before going further.

No. A sweep removes soot and includes a basic look at the chimney. An inspection is the closer check of every part, inside and out, whether or not the flue needs cleaning.

From indoors you usually cannot. Water travels along the framing before it shows, so the stain is often some way from the entry point. On the roof the usual suspects are the flashing, the crown, a missing cap and worn mortar joints, and they are checked in turn.

Scale. A repair fixes one failed part of a chimney that is otherwise sound. A restoration is for a chimney where the brickwork, the crown and the liner have all worn, and it rebuilds or renews each of them in one planned job.

Yes, though it may not need sweeping. Weather wears the cap, crown and flashing whether or not you light a fire, and an idle flue is where birds and squirrels like to nest. The yearly look is for those things.

Replace it when the metal itself has failed: rusted through, split, or too thin to hold a screw. Repair is for a sound cap with one problem, such as a loose base or a tear in the mesh. Photos from the roof usually settle it.

If the frame and lid are solid, new mesh can be fitted to the existing cap. If the mesh tore because the whole cap is rusting, replacing the screen only delays the rest. We check the frame first and show you what we see.

Because water has been getting in all that time, and the damage it does is slow and hidden. Open flues are also where nests end up. A cap keeps both out from then on.

It depends on the crown, not the cracks alone. Fine cracks in a crown that is still hard and firmly attached can be filled and coated. If pieces are loose, missing or cracked through to the brick, a coating has nothing sound to hold on to, and the crown should be rebuilt.

Hold off on fires until it has been looked at. A crack can open wider when the flue heats, and you cannot judge that from the room. Photos from inside the flue show whether it is a single tile or a sign of wider damage.

Newer boilers and furnaces generally send cooler exhaust up the chimney than the equipment they replace. In a wide, cold masonry flue that exhaust can condense into acidic moisture, and the draft can turn sluggish. A liner sized to the new appliance keeps the exhaust warm and moving.

It depends on how much is damaged and where. Open joints and a small number of cracks can often be repaired in place, and a broken tile at the top can be swapped out. When tiles are cracked or missing along the length of the flue, relining is the sounder fix.

Shine a flashlight up past the top of the firebox. With a throat damper open you can see into the flue; closed, you see a metal plate. If you cannot tell, do not light a fire to find out.

If the bricks are solid and in line and only the mortar is worn, pointing is the repair. If bricks are cracked, loose or shifted, or the stack is leaning, new mortar in the joints will not fix it and those courses have to be rebuilt. We tell you which after seeing it up close.

Not always. A short chimney inside the house, serving an appliance with hot exhaust, may draft well without it. Insulation earns its place on exterior chimneys, tall flues, wood stoves and inserts, and newer boilers and furnaces with cooler exhaust.

Often, yes. A new appliance may have a different outlet size or sit in a different spot, and old pipe that looks fine from outside can be thin with rust inside. Have the pipe checked whenever the equipment changes.

The chimney is the pipe that carries the exhaust. The chase is the box built around it, which is what you see from the street. The chase cover is the metal lid on top of the box, and the cap sits above the pipe itself.

Yes, though for a different reason than a fireplace. Gas leaves little soot, but the flue still fills from the bottom with flaked lining, rust, mortar sand and whatever falls in from the top. Checking it once a year and cleaning it when there is buildup keeps the opening clear.

Usually not. A tune-up covers the burner and the passages inside the boiler, and often the pipe, but the chimney flue and the cleanout at its base are separate. Ask your service company what was done, and if nobody has opened the cleanout, it is time.

It depends on the bird. Some species are protected by law while nesting, and their nests cannot be disturbed until the young have left. Until then, keep the damper closed and do not use the fireplace. Once they are gone we clear the flue and cap it.