Duct Cleaning And Maintenance – Why DIY Isn’t An Option

In the never-ending search for ways and means to keep costs to absolute minimums, businesses up and down the country are frantically looking for new and innovative ways to keep all jobs and duties in-house. On the surface it makes perfect sense – why shell out cash for professional involvement when you can take care of things with a little DIY? And so the theory goes when it comes to dust extraction system inspection and maintenance – why ask the pros to come in at a cost to the business, when it’s easy enough to keep your eye on things yourself, right?

Wrong.

The importance of clean, fresh and safe air in the workplace doesn’t…or at least shouldn’t…require much of an explanation. Nevertheless, when and where any business refuses or at least delays the involvement of professional inspection teams, extraction and ventilation systems can silently and invisibly fall into a state of disrepair.

Here’s a quick look at why the DIY option really isn’t an option at all in this instance:

1 – You Don’t Know What You’re Looking For

So, first of all, it’s one thing to set about proactively looking for problems, but how can you expect to find anything if you don’t know what you’re looking for? The trouble here is that more often than not, the kinds of problems that are indicative of a growing or already rather serious issue may be nigh-on invisible to the naked eye. Some problems (huge blockages for example) may be pretty obvious to anyone, but more often than not it’s the subtler problems that not only end up going overlooked, but stand to cause the most damage both short and long-term.

2 – If You Did, You Still Wouldn’t Know Where to Find it

But to a certain extent the above is all by the by because even if you did have at least some idea of the kinds of problems you should be looking for, chances are you’ll have no idea where to start looking for them. Ducts tend to be incredible complex installations to deal with – so many twists, turns, corners and surfaces to scour with a fine-tooth comb. It’s one thing to poke your head into a pipe and have a quick glance – sadly this does not constitute safe of acceptable professional-level inspection.

3 – Don’t Have the Tools For the Job

Which leads onto the pretty obvious point that while you may have the desire to do the job yourself, there’s no way on Earth you’ll have access to the tools you’ll need to get it done. Professionals arm themselves with a quite impressive array of specialist tools and gadgets created solely for this purpose – a stepladder and spanner really won’t cut it, unfortunately. So, try as you might, there’s just no way you’ll be able to get the job done properly.

4 – There Are Better Ways to Invest Your Time

If you were to try your hand at giving your ducts and extraction systems a good once-over, even though you’d fall rather short of the mark quality wise, you’d still be looking at a huge investment of your own time. Assuming that your time is both a valuable asset and could be used for bigger and better things elsewhere, this once again represents a rather pointless waste. When you call in the professionals, the whole job is taken care of on your behalf leaving you free to do whatever it is you do best.

5 – If You Find Problems, You Won’t Be Able to Fix Them Anyway

Moving on, one of the most common sense reasons of all why there’s no point in bothering with your own DIY inspections is the question of repairs. Ask yourself – even if you come across all manner of problems you’ve proudly identified solo, how are you going to fix them without calling in the pros? And when you do call in the pros, do you reckon they’ll take your word for it or are they more likely to carry out their own inspection, just to be safe? The answer is of course the latter, so really it’s not worth bothering with the DIY option.

6 – You’ll Achieve a Fraction of the Results by Investing Far Too Much Time

Last but not least, factor in the kind of disruption and potential downtime you’ll be looking at to tackle the job on your own and chances are you’ll quickly see why calling in the pros is a good idea. They’ll do the job in a fraction of the time, they’ll minimise disruption and they could even do it outside working hours to eliminate downtime.

So really, there’s only one option that makes sense…and DIY it most certainly isn’t!