Will this Clean Mold on my Duct System | HVAC Systems

Hey, on this episode we're talking about spraying a whole can of Lysol in your unit. We're talking about if my compressor goes out, does my heat still work? And should I have a return in every single room? You ask your comfort and energy questions and they get answered. This is the Ask Derrick Cole Show.

"Do you have to have an air return for every vent or could you have the vents in the bedrooms and half in the hallway?" Hey, that's a good question.

When we zone houses, well, let's start here. Let's back up a little bit. The more returns and the bigger the return, it can't be too big. You can't have too many because you want the air to get back to the unit as easily as possible. For example, if you got a 1,600 square foot house, the back bedroom at the corner and the returns towards the other side of the house, it's going to be harder for that air to come back to the return. So I mean, it's not a bad idea in that situation to have one on this side of the house and have one on this side of the house. That way the air can come back as quickly as possible and get back to the unit. So the more returns, the better. I mean, obviously you don't want to go crazy and put You know, 20 returns in a 900-square-foot house, that's probably not going to work out. But I think I know where you're going with this question. When we zone houses and doors stay shut in those rooms, we like to put a return in those rooms because it all feeds back to the main return that can get to the unit. So for example, when I was a kid living at home, Our house was zoned, so I kept staying in my room quite a bit and shut the door. So every room had a return, so it made it as easy as possible. You don't necessarily have to do that, but if that door is going to be shut, and I think we covered one time before about carpet and air gaps and things like that, if it's going to be hard for the air to get back to the return, you want it in that room. So that would be fine as well. The bigger return, the better. I mean, anything that eases up the fact that air needs to get back to the unit is better for it. So in that situation with the 1,600 square foot house, I mean, ideally you want to have one over here and one over here. You just don't want one return because it makes it hard for that back room for the air to come back to it. Now, it's going to get air one way or another. You want to get clean filtered air. You don't want to get air from the attic or from the crawl space that's dirty and dusty and smelly. You want to control as much of that as you can.

If my compressor is out, will my heat still work?

It depends on what kind of system you have, but around here we have a lot of Heat pumps, uh, yes, it will still work. You will use that backup emergency heat. I don't know if you remember episode 42 where I said disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer, because you're going to use a lot of energy by only using your backup heat. So when you use that backup heat as the main heat, which will happen when your compressor is out, uh, you're gonna have some $500, $600, $700 light bills. It's gonna be quite painful, but it will work. We do a lot of modular homes and mobile homes, and their original setup is air conditioner outside, electric furnace inside. Well, we do— we go back with a heat pump outside and use that electric furnace inside as the backup heat source. That saves them a lot of money because now your primary heat is the heat pump Your secondary heat is the electric furnace. So I would never use the secondary as my primary because of light bill reasons. But yes, to answer your question, it will work. Do I recommend it? No, I don't.

Does spraying a whole can of Lysol into your air intake actually do any good to eliminate mold?

All right, so if you read the can of Lysol, I believe— and I haven't seen one in a while— but I believe it says kills 99% of germs on contact. So is the contact being made throughout the system if you spray it in the return, which I think is what you mean by intake? No. So is it going to kill mold and stuff downstream? No. Now it might take care of something right there in front of you when you spray it. Hey, I got a piece right there, it's dead. It might do that, but it's not going to filter through the unit and go out through your system and sanitize the whole place. That is not going to happen. You have multiple problems. First of all, you're spraying a chemical in the system, which is then getting to the unit, which could cause damage. So I would not recommend it on any scale. We have quite a few products to handle any kind of growth you may have, as well as cleaning your duct and sealing your duct and then taking care of your unit inside. We do it naturally. We do it with UV, Mother Nature kind of products, okay? We don't use chemicals. We don't use anything that's harmful. Everything we use to clean your system is all natural. So if you go outside I think you guys probably heard this old thing about if you're in the woods, which way is north? Well, north is the side with the moss on it. Why is that? Because UV or sunlight does not get into that side of the tree. That's why it's growing on it. So your unit, your system is the same way. You have a dark, damp climate and things start happening. So we take UV or the power of the sun and bring it into your system and shine light on those products and things don't grow anymore. So that's the simple way to do it. I mean, you do it naturally. You don't spray Lysol. You can if you want to. I think Lysol is pretty expensive. I'm not sure what the price is for a can. $3, $4 a can. $3, $4 a can. Yeah, I don't know. But to answer the question, it will kill what is on contact, which is going to be right in front of you. But no, it will not— it will not go downstream.