This Inside Edition undercover investigation reveals fraudulent mold testing by a bait and switch air duct cleaning company.

Learn the important questions to ask a contractors before you invite them into your home.

If you’re calling from a coupon or yellow page ad, you have no idea of the background, training, insurance coverage, or quality standards of the company behind that phone number. So how can you, as a homeowner, sort through the dozens of choices and make the right decision on a service provider? Well here’s a checklist of questions that you can ask. Now, I’ve worded these questions for air duct cleaning, but the list is useful for just about any service provider. Number one: Is air duct cleaning your primary business?

ON-SCREEN TEXT: 1. Is air duct cleaning your primary business?

BARRY MCCOY:
Many carpet cleaners, chimney sweeps, and furnace companies are now offering air duct cleaning as an add-on service. Number two: How long have you been doing air duct cleaning on a full-time basis?

ON-SCREEN TEXT: 2. How long have you been doing air duct cleaning on a full-time basis?

BARRY MCCOY:
Is this a trained, experienced professional- or are they “practicing” on your house? Number three: What kind of equipment are you using to do the work?

ON-SCREEN TEXT: 3. What kind of equipment are you using to do the work?

BARRY MCCOY:
We believe the specialized air duct vacuum truck is the key for professional air duct cleaning. Now there are many inexpensive portable shop vac style machines being used, but Fresh Air Corp doesn’t use them. They’re small, the vacuum pressure is very low, and they exhaust inside your home. If these small machines aren’t thoroughly cleaned and sanitized after every job, the dirt, fleas, and cockroaches from the last project are brought right into your home. Number four: Do you offer a video inspection so I can see the actual results?

ON-SCREEN TEXT: 4. Do you offer a video inspection so I can see the actual results?

BARRY MCCOY:
At Fresh Air Corp, you’ll be shown the inside of the system, the blower fan, and main trunk lines. We’re proud of our thorough service, and we want to show off our work. Number five: Is the price you’re advertising, the price I can expect for a complete job?

ON-SCREEN TEXT: 5. Is the price you’re advertising, the price I can expect for a complete job?

BARRY MCCOY:
Watch out for the “bait and switch.” Here is an actual invoice from a newspaper coupon- the bait- offering a $99 full house special. On the work order presented at the time of cleaning, there were thirteen additional lines with costs that brought the final price to $515. Now this kind of dishonest marketing is wide spread in the air duct cleaning business. The low price on a coupon is many times an outright deception, and you’ll be presented with the “switch” when they’re standing in your home, counting on being able to pressure you into authorizing the additional charges. Do you really think a company that will manipulate you with fraudulent pricing, dishonest coupon offers, and lists of add-ons is really interested in providing high quality air duct cleaning and professional service? It’s a good question to consider. Number six: Are you a member of the Better Business Bureau and Angie’s List?

ON-SCREEN TEXT: 6. Are you a member of the “B.B.B.” [Better Business Bureau] and Angie’s List?

BARRY MCCOY:
Membership in organizations such as these shows a critical element- accountability. With a simple phone call or website inquery, you can find out what Fresh Air Corp customers are saying about our service that we provide. Number seven: Will you provide names and numbers of former clients?

ON-SCREEN TEXT: 7. Will you provide names and phone numbers of former clients?

BARRY MCCOY:
Here’s what our customers have to say about Fresh Air Corp.

ON-SCREEN TEXT: “Our 100-year-old home has come back to life!” Mary & Larry D.
“We feel our home is definitely warmer!” Lori & Dave O.
“The men treated our home like it was their own!” Bill & Dorothy B.

BARRY MCCOY:
Number eight: Do you have comprehensive liability insurance, and will you provide proof of that coverage?

ON-SCREEN TEXT: 8. Do you provide comprehensive liability insurance coverage?

BARRY MCCOY:
Well, there you have it, the “Fresh Air Report: Indoor Air and Your Health.” I hope these few minutes have been enlightening, and given you information that will help you make your home a healthier place to breath. If it’s been three years or longer since your air duct system has been professionally cleaned, call us at Fresh Air Corp. Your family will thank you, your furnace system will run cleaner, and efficiently, and Sick Building Syndrome will be a thing of the past. Thank you

ON-SCREEN TEXT: Indoor Air and Your Health. The End.

END IA5 Questions To Ask

Learn about Fresh Air’s powerful equipment and specialized cleaning tools used to properly clean your air ducts.

If you’re concerned about the quality of air in your home, you’ve probably noticed the advertisements for room air purifiers, special furnace filters, plug in air fresheners, and disinfectant sprays that promise to clean up your indoor air. Now while these products may have merit for a specific area, like the bathroom, or condition- a strong cooking odor- most of them miss the real point; they’re addressing the symptom, not the problem. The reason the air in many homes is so dirty is often because the ventilation system is contaminated. The duct work, cold air returns, and trunk lines are not only collecting the debris, but every time the furnace blower comes on, more dirt and dust blow back into your home. So why don’t more homeowners get right to the heart of the problem and keep the air duct system cleaned? Because they don’t see the dirt everyday. We all know when the carpet’s looking bad, or the sidewalk is crumbling, but we don’t actually see the mess in the duct work, so we just don’t think about it. If you want to keep the air in your home clean and healthy, the first step is to remove the years of collected contamination from the air duct system. So let’s answer the question: What’s the best way to accomplish that? Let’s take a moment and see how thorough and professional air duct cleaning is done. At Fresh Air Corp, the job starts with the crew arriving at your home on time. A thick vinyl tarp protects your driveway from grease and oil. Our truck mounted Monster Vac is specifically designed for air duct cleaning because that’s all we do. The large rubber vacuum hoses are an important tool to carry the tremendous vacuum that is vital to a thorough cleaning. The outdoor blue units attach to the truck. Our orange hoses are only used indoors, and protective edge guards are placed at all corners and doorways. The hoses are connected by soft flexible canvas wraps, and a special connecting boot allows us to attach the hose directly to the main trunk lines and cold air plenums. Now the Monster Vac can be started up. Although the vacuum doesn’t actually do the deep cleaning, the huge reverse air flow makes a perfect air highway for the removal of the dirt, dust, and contamination. Now the first stage, or the set up, is complete, and the Fresh Air Corp technician will begin the cleaning of the air duct system. But before we address the next step, I’d like to answer a question that I’m asked regularly: How exactly does a furnace system work?

ON-SCREEN TEXT: How does a furnace system work?

BARRY MCCOY:
To help us better understand the cleaning of the ventilation and duct system, let’s just take a quick look at how the furnace system operates to heat or cool your home. We’re looking at a typical up-flow furnace unit that is designed with the blower fan in the lower section, bringing the air up through either the heat exchanger or the A coil. Heat exchanger of course raising the temperature of the air to warm you home, the A coil circulating freon to bring the temperature down and give us air conditioning. Once the air leaves the cabinet, it goes into what we term the bonnet, which is connected then to the large trunk line, which then begins to distribute the air toward each of the individual rooms. The air is brought into each room through a round duct run, connected to a register which you would see typically in either the floor or on the wall. Once the air warms or cools the home, it then needs to come back down to continue to circulate throughout the system. That’s accomplished by the cold air return. The cold air return covers in your home would be either in the center hallway, down by the floor area, or on the second floor, up near the ceiling. Brings the air back down into what we call the cold air plenum, the air then drops down through a filter, and the filter can be either a dollar fiber glass unit, all the way up through electronic or electro-static filters, and then back into the blower fan to start the cycle all over again. Ok, now we’ll go back to our cleaning, and see how the next stage occurs. Each register is closed off with a vinyl cover. Both the supply and return systems will be cleaned, and the area just behind the main cold air return often reveals the level of contamination in the house to be cleaned. Each metal conversion boot is hand cleaned, using a mild degreasing agent. At Fresh Air Corp, we actually scrub the inside of your ductwork with a multi-fingered Viper. Soft rubber fingers use pressurized air to clean every last bit of dirt and dust from the ductwork. The vacuum from the Monster Vac pulls the air backward towards the 8 inch hose, the scrubbing fingers of the Viper clean the debris from the walls of the ductwork, and the compressed air passing through each spinning finger drives the debris and dirt down through each run. This process is repeated at every register opening in the home. The result- a clean and sparkling system. Now, the cleaning process we just demonstrated drives the dirt and dust down into the main trunk lines and cold air plenum. We’re demonstrating our process in a home where the furnace is in the basement, so our final cleaning stage will take us there. If your system is on the first floor, a crawl space, or in the attic, we have slightly different tools and procedures. So, let’s finish up. We start by drilling a 1 inch access hole at the far end of the trunk line. The Viper is inserted, and scrubs the walls of the line, while driving the material into the waiting vacuum hose. The extension rods and high pressure air hoses will extend the full length of even extra-long runs. The light grey plastic plug, and a new access panel close everything back up, and seals the system against any loss of airflow or pressure. The final step is the air washing of the blower fan and the heat exchanger, to remove any loose dust that may have accumulated. We don’t recommend unhooking or removing any mechanical parts inside the furnace. Ok! That’s our overview of how Fresh Air Corp professionally cleans your air duct system. But we still have one important topic to cover. It’s unfortunate, but the service industry has a bad name with many homeowners. Whether it’s carpet shampooing, lawn service, exterminating, or air duct cleaning, there seems to always be contractors who will try and cheat or take advantage of the public. In most cases, we simply don’t know how to compare the right way of doing something with the low price, low quality, and sometimes fraudulent product offer. In our next segment, I’ll given you some invaluable information that will allow you to ask the right questions, compare service quality, and make an informed decision about what’s best for your home.

ON-SCREEN TEXT: Indoor Air and Your Health. The End.

END IA4 Best Way To Clean

Learn about the series of events that has brought about this serious and widely recognized problem.

The problem didn’t happen overnight. There were a series of events that occurred over time that, added together, contributed to Sick Building Syndrome. Here’s a quick overview. For decades, American households participated in a practice known as ‘Spring Cleaning.’ After a long winter, families wanted to freshen up their homes. Rugs were taken outside and hard wood floors cleaned. Bedding and draperies were washed and hung on the clothesline to dry. Windows were opened, screens put in place, and attic fans pulled in the fresh outdoor air. This simple process allowed months of collected dirt and dust to return to the outdoors. Open windows throughout the Summer months and early Fall allowed a constant exchange of indoor and outdoor air. This tradition began to change with the popularity of two modern home improvements: affordable central air conditioning, and wall-to-wall carpeting. These modern conveniences offered pleasure and style, but created the perfect setting for an unhealthy indoor air environment. No one could have foreseen what would follow these advancements. Families loved the natural dehumidification that accompanied air conditioning, so windows and doors stayed closed throughout the Summer. The same air was re-circulated over and over and the air pollutants had no way to escape. About this same time, Americans fell in love with their wall-to-wall carpeting. Where once the oval rugs and orientals would be taken outside and cleaned, the new permanently installed carpet stayed in place year after year. The thousands of nylon loops that make up carpeting are a perfect collection and holding area for dust, dirt, hair, insects, pet dander, and dozens of airborne pollutants. To make matters even worse, more and more household products became available in aerosol cans. Molecules of cleaning solutions, insecticides, non-stick cooking oils, hairspray, and deodorants were sprayed into the air and added to the dirty mix of dust and dirt. In the early 70’s, the cost of energy skyrocketed, and America’s attention turned to finding ways of conserving fuel. The push for conservation motivated millions of homeowners to plug air leaks, insulate their attics, and add double paned windows- and it worked. Homes became energy efficient marvels, keeping the heated or cooled air tightly confined to the inside spaces. What no one realized: we had also created a perfect environment for a whole new problem. Air was now re-circulated over and over again, and the mixture of dirt, dust, and chemicals, and other contaminants became permanent house guests. This combination of seemingly unrelated events has created indoor air quality problems known as ‘Sick Building Syndrome.’ Now, let’s look at how an air duct system should be thoroughly and professionally cleaned.

Learn why so many respected sources confirm that the air inside our homes has become contaminated.

If your child catches a cold, you respond with medication or a trip to the doctor.

If we see a hazard, we don’t hesitate to fix it!
If your tap water turns cloudy, you check your softener or call the water department.

ON-SCREEN TEXT: Cloudy or smelly drinking water

BARRY MCCOY:
We guard our families against physical harm with locks, child proof hinges, stairway gates, safety outlets, and radon alarms.

ON-SCREEN TEXT: Locks, Hinges, Gates, Outlet Covers & Alarms

BARRY MCCOY:
When we see a problem we don’t hesitate to correct it. But what if we don’t know the danger exists?

ON-SCREEN TEXT: “Is there really an Indoor Air Quality Problem?”

BARRY MCCOY:
Before we discovered the hazards of lead based paints and asbestos insulation, we all lived in ignorance of the potential harm. So we asked this honest question: Is there really an indoor air quality problem? And the overwhelming volume of available information concludes- absolutely.

ON-SCREEN TEXT: Asthma. Bronchitis. Allergies.

BARRY MCCOY:
So let’s review just a sampling of the research. In the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] booklet, The Inside Story: A Guide to Indoor Air Quality, we read: “A growing body of scientific evidence indicates air within American homes and offices is seriously polluted.”

ON-SCREEN TEXT: “A growing body of scientific evidence, indicates air within American homes and offices is seriously polluted.” Environmental Protection Agency

BARRY MCCOY:
The American Lung Association report, Air Quality: The Impact On Lung Health, states: “Fragile lung tissue can be easily damaged by pollutants in the air, resulting in an increased risk of asthma, allergies, and bronchitis.”

ON-SCREEN TEXT: “Fragile lung tissue can be easily damaged by pollutants in the air, resulting in an increased risk of asthma, allergies, and bronchitis.” American Lung Association

BARRY MCCOY:
A Time Magazine feature article called ”This Place Makes Me Sick” reports: “Scientists are investigating a mysterious new epidemic called ‘Sick Building Syndrome’ where sealed, energy-conserving buildings continually recycle contaminated air.”

ON-SCREEN TEXT: “Scientists are investigating a mysterious new epidemic called ‘Sick Building Syndrome’ where sealed, energy-conserving buildings continually recycle contaminated air.” TIME Magazine

BARRY MCCOY:
A 1995 report by the Center for Disease Control entitled Indoor Environmental Quality says: “Symptoms of these dangerous indoor air contaminants may include headaches, nausea, fatigue and respiratory irritation.”

ON-SCREEN TEXT: “Symptoms of these dangerous indoor air contaminants may include headaches, nausea, fatigue & respiratory irritation.” Center for Disease Control

BARRY MCCOY:
And we could go on and on, and recite dozens of studies, reports, articles, and books, warning us all that the air we’re breathing inside our homes is often more polluted than the air outside.

ON-SCREEN TEXT: Asthma. Bronchitis. Allergies.

BARRY MCCOY:
With so much evidence, what should our next step be? Well, we can start by asking some questions like: How did this happen? What is making our indoor environment so dirty? And that’s what we’ll do in the next section: “What’s Causing Sick Building Syndrome.”

ON-SCREEN TEXT: Indoor Air and Your Health. The End.
END IA2 Is There a Problem