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 HVAC Cleaning Across Kensington
HVAC cleaning in Kensington means getting the evaporator coil, blower, and duct runs actually clean, not just vacuuming the easy trunk lines. A full-service cleaning in Kensington typically runs $425 – $850 for a standard home, depending on system size and how many components need separate attention. We know the older stucco bungalows off Arlington Avenue and the split-levels up toward the Kensington Circle. Call (737) 727-2314 and a live person answers, not a voicemail loop.
Why Cardinal Air Duct Cleaning Is Kensington’s Preferred HVAC Cleaning Company
Kensington homeowners keep calling us for one reason: we write the price down before any work starts, and that number doesn’t change when the technician is standing in your driveway. Our crews work the hillside streets here regularly, from the flats near Colusa Avenue up to the ridgeline, so we know how the older duct runs behave. The 365-Day Done Right Promise covers every job we book, no exceptions. If the work isn’t right within a full year, we come back and correct it at no charge.
Our technicians are background-checked, uniformed, and carry professional-grade equipment: Rotobrush rotary brush systems, Nikro HEPA vacuums, and Abatement Technologies containment units. You’ll know your tech’s name before they open the door. Omar Haddad leads the team, and every booking goes through The Relay Standard: a live trackable arrival window, before-and-after photos of your own ducts, and a digital invoice payable from your phone. That’s the way it should work in Kensington, where nobody has time for four-hour arrival windows.
Evaporator Coil Cleaning in Kensington
Evaporator coil cleaning in Kensington is not a hand-wave add-on, it’s the single highest-value service we do on these hillside homes. The coil sits inside the air handler and absorbs heat from your living space. When it’s coated in dust and the cold-side film that forms in older ducted systems, your AC works harder and cools less. On a 75-degree Kensington afternoon, a dirty coil can add 15 – 25 minutes to your cooling cycle. A standalone evaporator coil cleaning runs $180 – $320, depending on how buried the coil is in the air handler.
What a Kensington coil cleaning actually involves
We pull the access panel and inspect the coil with a camera before touching anything. Then we apply a self-rinsing coil cleaner, let it break down the matted dust and biofilm, and use compressed air at low pressure to push debris out without bending the aluminum fins. The work takes 45 – 90 minutes, and we photograph the coil before and after so you see what moved. No mystery, no skipped steps.
When a coil is too far gone to clean
Sometimes the coil has pinhole leaks or the fins are so corroded from years of condensation that cleaning won’t restore efficiency. We’ll tell you straight, show you the photos, and if a replacement is the honest call, the written price for that repair is handed to you the same way, before any work begins. The decision stays yours.
AC Duct Cleaning in Kensington
AC duct cleaning in Kensington means cleaning the full path your conditioned air travels: supply runs, return runs, the trunk lines, and the plenum boxes at both ends. A standard single-system home here runs $425 – $675, and that’s one flat price for the entire duct scope, not a per-vent tally that creeps upward as the afternoon wears on. We agree on that number in writing before a single register is pulled.
What negative-pressure extraction means
We seal the system and run a Nikro HEPA vacuum under negative pressure while rotary brushes work the duct walls. Negative pressure means the loosened debris gets pulled straight into the vacuum at the source, not blown back into your living room. On Kensington’s older bungalows, this matters. The ducts are tight, the runs are long, and cheap positive-pressure setups just stir the dust around.
The coil and blower are separate scopes
Here’s the honest part: a “duct cleaning” that doesn’t touch the evaporator coil or blower wheel is half a job. Most of the resistance to airflow lives on the coil and blower, not in the ducts themselves. We quote them as separate line items so you see exactly what’s included. No bait pricing around the registers that silently leaves the coil untouched.
Trusted Brands We Service in Kensington
We work on whatever your Kensington home has: Carrier, Trane, Lennox, Rheem, Goodman, and the older units still hanging on in pre-war houses. We carry replacement filters and filtration products from Honeywell, Aprilaire, and Guardsman on the truck, so a filter upgrade doesn’t require a follow-up visit. HVAC Cleaning on a system with an Aprilaire media cabinet often means swapping the cabinet gasket and checking the airflow across the filter. We do that as part of the job, not as a separate dispatch.
Common HVAC Cleaning Problems We See in Kensington Homes
- Cold-side dust-and-moisture film in older duct runs. The pre-war bungalows on streets like Ardmore and Kent often have supply ducts fished through uninsulated attics and crawlspaces. That means the duct walls stay cooler than the living space, and a distinct cold-side film forms, a sticky dust-and-moisture layer that a routine Santa Rosa or Berkeley duct rarely shows. It needs mechanical agitation plus HEPA extraction to break loose, not just a quick vacuum pass.
- Rodent damage in crawlspace returns. We see chewed return ducts under the older homes near the Kensington Circle more than anywhere else in the East Bay hills. A camera inspection shows the breach, and then we know whether sealing the run or replacing a section is the right call before any cleaning begins.
- Disconnected flex in later infill homes. The split-levels and 1970s infill homes off Colusa Avenue often have flex duct that’s pulled apart at the collar or crushed by storage in the attic. If we don’t check the connections, we’re cleaning air paths that are already compromised.
- Flat-price quotes that silently exclude the coil. This is the one we hear about twice a month from Kensington homeowners who hired someone else last year. The quote covered the registers and the trunk lines, but the evaporator coil and the AC duct scope were extra. That’s not a cleaning, that’s a partial pass. Our written price lines out every component before we touch a single register.
Pricing for HVAC Cleaning in Kensington, CA
Here are real numbers for Kensington, not “call for pricing.” A standard single-system home with accessible ducts runs $425 – $675 for the full duct scope. Adding evaporator coil cleaning is $180 – $320. Blower cleaning adds $120 – $180. A larger home with multiple air handlers, or a system with significant rodent damage requiring duct section replacement, can push the total to $850 – $1,200. The price you’re quoted is the price you pay. It’s written down before we begin, and it does not change at the door. Estimates are free. Call (737) 727-2314 and we’ll give you a real number based on your home, not a teaser that doubles later.
We Also Serve Cities Near Kensington
Our crews work across the Bay Area, including Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, and San Francisco. If you’re in Kensington proper, we’re already in the neighborhood on a regular schedule. If you’re just over the line, call and we’ll confirm coverage. Either way, you get the same written-price guarantee and the same 365-Day Done Right Promise on every job.
Serving Kensington, CA - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Kensington 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 About HVAC Cleaning in Kensington
Every 3 – 5 years for most Kensington homes, more often if you have pets that shed, you’ve done construction recently, or you live near the hillside with the dust and rodent activity we see near the more vegetated slopes. If you just moved into an older home off Arlington Avenue and don’t know the last time the ducts were touched, get a camera inspection first. That tells us whether cleaning is even the right call, or whether there’s a bigger issue upstream. Call (737) 727-2314 and we’ll inspect before we quote anything.
One flat price for the system, written down before any work starts. No per-vent tally, no “special” that only covers the easy trunk runs. The quote lists the duct scope, the coil scope, and the blower scope as separate line items so you know exactly what’s included. The number on the paper matches the number on the invoice.
We seal the system, run a HEPA vacuum under negative pressure, and send a Rotobrush through the supply and return ducts while the vacuum captures debris at the source. Then we photograph the registers, the trunk lines, the plenum, and the coil before and after, so you see your own ducts on your own phone. The whole job on a typical Kensington home takes 3 – 5 hours, and you get digital before-and-after photos when we’re done.
Yes. A dirty coil is the main reason Kensington homes run warm even when the AC is set low. On hot inland days when the marine layer stays offshore, a clean coil cycles faster and pulls more humidity out of the air. If your system is short-cycling or the upstairs never quite cools, the coil is usually the first place we look. Cleaning it is a separate scope, and we quote it that way.
We don’t promise same-day service, because a real HVAC cleaning is a scheduled job, not a drive-by. But we do answer the phone 24/7 with a live person, and we’ll give you the next available appointment slot, often within a few days. If you have an urgent issue like a rodent-damaged duct, we’ll prioritize the camera inspection. Call (737) 727-2314 and we’ll get you on the schedule fast.
Written by Omar Haddad, Owner at Cardinal Air Duct Cleaning, serving Kensington with honest, written-price HVAC cleaning.