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 Air Duct Cleaning Across Los Altos Hills
Air duct cleaning in Los Altos Hills typically runs $450-$850 for a full residential system, with most homes in the area requiring deeper source removal than valley-floor neighbors due to wildfire smoke accumulation and damp hillside crawl spaces. We’re familiar with the multi-wing ranches off Stonebrook Court, the custom builds near Rancho San Antonio Open Space Preserve, and the split-level homes tucked along the winding roads above Interstate 280. Our crews work out of our San Francisco Bay Area dispatch office and schedule Los Altos Hills appointments with routing that respects the town’s narrow hillside roads and gated driveways. Call (323) 918-4345 and a live person will pick up, 24/7.
Why Morton’s Air Duct Cleaning Is Los Altos Hills’s Preferred Air Duct Cleaning Company
We’ve been serving the Los Altos Hills area since 2005, and our reputation here was built on one thing: showing homeowners exactly what we found before we clean it, and exactly what it will cost before we start. Los Altos Hills customers regularly mention our technicians by name in reviews, noting the shoe covers at the door, the drop cloths over their entry tile, and the quiet work during nap hours. We don’t promise impossible response times to hillside addresses, but we do promise transparency: a written price on every visit, background-checked uniformed crews, and the 365-Day Done Right Promise stamped on every job. We know the difference between a 1960s ranch on a graded hillside lot and a 1990s custom near the Permanente Quarry area, and we adjust our approach accordingly.
Air Duct Inspection in Los Altos Hills
Air Duct Inspection in Los Altos Hills is where we always start, because the town’s older homes and wildfire exposure mean what you can’t see matters more than what you can. We run a video scope through your supply and return trunks, paying special attention to crawl-space flex duct beneath uphill foundation walls where rodent intrusion and moisture damage are common. A typical inspection in Los Altos Hills runs $150-$250, and if you move forward with cleaning, we apply that inspection fee toward the work.
What We Look For in Hillside Crawl Spaces
The camera doesn’t lie. We document collapsed flex runs, separated joints pulling debris from open space, and the thin layer of wildfire ash that coats galvanized trunks even in homes that felt “sealed” during smoke season. You’ll see the footage. Then we’ll explain what needs sealing versus what needs cleaning.
Inspection Reports for Multi-Zone Systems
Many Los Altos Hills homes have three or four HVAC zones serving wings added in different decades. Our inspection maps each zone separately so you understand which trunk runs are intact and which are bypassing air through damaged sections.
Residential Air Duct Cleaning in Los Altos Hills
Residential Air Duct Cleaning in Los Altos Hills means source removal under negative pressure, not a surface wipe of registers and a quick vacuum. We use Rotobrush contact cleaning and Nikro HEPA-filtered collection systems to extract decades of oak pollen, wildfire ash, and organic debris from the full length of your ductwork. A typical single-zone residential clean in Los Altos Hills runs $450-$650; multi-zone homes with extensive crawl-space ductwork range $650-$850 depending on access complexity and whether we find failed runs that need reconnection and sealing.
Protecting Your Home During the Clean
Our crews lay drop cloths from the entry to the attic or crawl access, wear shoe covers, and use the quietest setting on our equipment when we’re working near nap rooms or pet areas. The Cedarwell Care Promise means we protect floors and furniture before we touch a single vent cover.
Before-and-After Documentation
Every residential clean ends with a photo of the clean-up and a photo of key duct sections showing the source removal results. We leave these with you, along with your written invoice that matches the written price you approved before we started.
Trusted Brands We Service in Los Altos Hills
Our trucks carry professional-grade equipment from Rotobrush, Nikro, Aprilaire, and Abatement Technologies, not rental-shop vacuums with brush attachments. For Los Altos Hills homes with Honeywell or Aprilaire media air cleaners integrated into the HVAC system, we stock replacement filters and can upgrade your MERV rating during the same visit if your system can handle the static pressure. Guardsman protectants are available for duct surfaces where pet-safe application makes sense. Because we dispatch from the Bay Area metro office, parts arrive quickly and we don’t leave you waiting on a return trip.
Common Air Duct Cleaning Problems We See in Los Altos Hills Homes
- Wildfire smoke loading in multi-zone trunks. The 2020 SCU Lightning Complex and subsequent CZU fires deposited fine particulate throughout duct systems in Los Altos Hills that valley-floor homes in Sunnyvale or Mountain View never experienced at the same concentration. Temperature inversions trap that smoke at exactly this elevation band.
- Crawl-space flex duct collapse on uphill foundation walls. Hillside-graded lots create a persistent moisture gradient beneath the home, and the flex runs on the uphill side often separate at joints or suffer rodent damage from adjacent open space. The air handler then pulls from the crawl space, not the return path.
- Mildew growth in damp marine-influenced crawl spaces. Fog funneling through the foothill passes keeps under-floor areas cooler and wetter than the Santa Clara Valley floor. Older flex ductwork in these zones grows mildew that returns each spring if only the dry season gets addressed.
- Disconnected or crushed runs in 1970s-1990s additions. The sprawling single-story and multi-wing layouts common in Los Altos Hills mean exceptionally long duct runs, and original galvanized or early flex in unrenovated wings often has sag, crush, or complete separation that a basic cleaning won’t fix.
Pricing for Air Duct Cleaning in Los Altos Hills, CA
Here’s what honest pricing looks like for our Air Duct Cleaning work in Los Altos Hills:
| Service | Typical Range in Los Altos Hills |
|---|---|
| Air Duct Inspection (video scope) | $150-$250 (credited toward cleaning) |
| Single-zone residential clean | $450-$650 |
| Multi-zone residential clean (3+ zones) | $650-$850 |
| Crawl-space duct repair/reconnection | $200-$400 per run |
| Dryer vent cleaning (with duct service) | $125-$175 |
What moves you within these ranges? Number of zones, crawl-space access difficulty, whether we find failed runs that need sealing, and the extent of wildfire ash or rodent debris accumulation. We give one flat price per system, agreed in writing before any work starts. No per-vent pricing, no add-ons after the van is in your driveway. Call (323) 918-4345 for a free estimate.
We Also Serve Cities Near Los Altos Hills
Our Air Duct Cleaning in Los Altos Hills crew also travels to Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, and San Francisco for scheduled residential and commercial work. Routing from our Bay Area office means we can coordinate multi-day projects across the region without the delays of outsourced subcontractor networks.
Serving Los Altos Hills, CA - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Los Altos Hills 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 Air Duct Cleaning in Los Altos Hills
Los Altos Hills homes typically need cleaning every 2-3 years, versus 3-5 years for valley-floor cities like San Jose or Sunnyvale, because wildfire smoke inversions and damp crawl spaces load ducts faster here. If you’ve run your system through multiple smoke seasons without cleaning, or you notice musty odors each spring, schedule an inspection sooner. Call (323) 918-4345 and we’ll scope your system to give you a specific interval.
Yes. Multi-zone homes from that era in Los Altos Hills often have original galvanized trunks in the main wing and flex additions in later wings, with exceptionally long runs that require zone-by-zone source removal rather than a single-pass approach. We inspect each zone separately and price the full system as one flat fee, not per vent or per zone. The 1970s builds off Stonebrook Court and similar hillside streets are exactly the homes where we find collapsed flex runs and separated joints.
It’s more common here than most homeowners expect, especially on properties adjacent to Rancho San Antonio Open Space Preserve or other hillside open-space edges. The combination of oak canopy, one-acre-minimum lots, and crawl-space access points creates pathways for rodents into under-floor ductwork. We inspect for chew damage and entry points during our camera scope, and we’ll show you exactly what we find before recommending cleaning versus repair. Don’t run the system until it’s checked - you could be pulling crawl-space air past the filter.
Source removal of accumulated combustion particulate from your ductwork eliminates the reservoir that re-circulates smoke odor each time the system runs, but only if the cleaning reaches the full trunk length and any failed runs are sealed. A surface wipe of registers won’t do it. In Los Altos Hills, where smoke loads are heavier than valley-floor neighbors, we typically pair thorough contact cleaning with a higher-MERV filter upgrade and verification that all return paths are intact. The smoke smell reduction is significant when the source is actually removed.
Yes, and we recommend it. Dryer vent cleaning runs $125-$175 when bundled with duct cleaning, and Los Altos Hills homes with long vent runs through hillside-graded crawl spaces or multi-story walls are particularly prone to lint accumulation that restricts airflow and creates fire risk. Our crew cleans the full vent path to the exterior termination and verifies airflow before leaving. Call (323) 918-4345 to add it to your estimate.
Written by Paul Adeyemi, Owner at Morton’s Air Duct Cleaning, serving Los Altos Hills since 2005.