Colorado Air Care

I'd gotten the impression the tech would try to up-sell me when I scheduled the service, so it wasn't a surprise when he told me there was bad news: he'd have to charge me to cut a hole into my furnace, and there would be several more charges for him to clean all of my vents (the deal was for seven vents, I have nine). I was a little annoyed at having to pay twice the cost of the "deal," but wanted to get it done. So, he began. His equipment scraped paint off the walls as he carried it downstairs, and he had to ask me for help (though I'm pregnant) in carrying the heavy machine. Then he drilled three holes in my ducts. I was never sure these were necessary, but as the tech spoke only halting English, it was difficult to communicate. But the real problem began later, when he turned on the furnace and a truly amazing amount of dust came blasting out of every vent in the house. We recently moved in, so it was maybe 15 years worth of someone else's dust exploding everywhere. I couldn't see or breathe. I had to run to the back yard, coughing. Then, smoke started billowing out of the vents upstairs and downstairs. All six of my smoke alarms went off.The tech kept working. When I interrupted him to ask if something was on fire, he said, "You are welcome to check the rooms." At one point, he pointed at the plume of gray dust spraying out of the vent in my dining room and said, "Very dirty." When he left, the entire house (the ceilings, the walls, furniture, my cat, my hair) was coated in disgusting black dust. There was still smoke coming out of the vents, and I sat there with my phone, prepared to call the fire department. Though the house didn't burn down, it is a complete mess and I've spent the past three days coughing and cleaning. I've even had to clean some of the ducts he missed (but charged me for). I've never had a duct-cleaning, but I can't imagine this is how it's supposed to go. I'd much rather all this dirt was still in the ducts, and I was $170 richer. Don't call these bozos.

I chose this company because they offered a fixed rate for their vent cleaning services. Since I have a small, 1-bedroom condo, I thought that would be a good deal. Not so. After original appointment was scheduled, company called me back to change appointment to an earlier time. Then technician was late by almost 2 hours, meaning that he arrived at the originally scheduled time. No notice that he was running late, but the technician did offer the explanation that his first appointment took longer than expected. There was no evidence of brushes used in the cleaning process in the vents. All I saw was a large vacuum hose inserted into the furnace, which the technician allowed to run for about 30 minutes. The "sanitizing" process was nothing more than the technician spraying the outside of the vents with a liquid. No drying process, no wiping clean, just spraying. Air return grill was removed. Light vacuuming job done behind air return vent. This would be something that anyone could do with a household vacuum. Dryer vent cleaning did not go well. I don't think the dryer vent had been cleaned in years and there was quite a bit of dryer lint. The technician pulled the dryer lint out of the vent with his "sanitizing" sprayer. He was going to leave the dryer lint on the floor. As he was packing up his tools getting ready to leave, I asked him to vacuum up the dryer lint and he said he didn't have the proper vacuum to do it. (What?) I said ok, I would do it, and he said if I gave him a vacuum, he would take care ot it. I gave him my shop vac, and he got most of the lint, but there was lint remaining on all the baseboards, lint on the walls and on the plumbing fixtures. My advice -- skip the fixed rate and choose another company.