Breathe Easy with Air Ducts Done Right

As a teenager, Vito Moscato was more interested in athletics than academics.

He tried a variety of jobs as a young man, working in fast food, retail and the construction trades. He cleaned and restored ornamental metal on buildings such as the Sears Tower and the Daley Center. He installed security systems. None of these jobs felt right.

Then Moscato took a business class at College of DuPage and got an ‘A.’

“The whole working thing changed me as a person,” he said.

In 1992, Moscato responded to an ad in the paper and was hired as an air duct cleaner.

“I had no idea what the business even was,” he said. “They trained me for two days, then put me out on the truck by myself, doing three to five duct-cleaning jobs a day.”

Some aspects of his new job began to bother him. “I would go home and have trouble sleeping at night,” he explained. “When I’d leave these people’s homes and I’d told them that I’m all done and their system’s clean, I knew deep down that their systems really were not clean. I was using a vacuum and a leaf blower to clean out ducts.”

Moscato researched different types of equipment, procedures and standards. He took his concerns and research to the owner of the company. The owner was unmoved, so Moscato quit.

“I want to do right by people,” he said.

Moscato found similar conditions working at several other air duct cleaning companies. He spoke of practices that included mixing a five-gallon can of sanitizer into a 55-gallon drum of water. The sanitizer was not a concentrate, but it was treated as one.

“I was always taught by my mom and dad to do something well, and do it better than anybody else,” he said.

In June 1999, Moscato took that advice. He started his own company and named it . His company now includes an office manager, seven technicians and three trucks.

Moscato’s clients are 60 percent commercial, including hospitals and surgical centers, schools, townhouse and condominium buildings, and office buildings. Commercial clients have included the Sara Lee research and development location in Downers Grove.

Clients are often referred to Air Ducts Done Right by fire and flood restoration companies, mold remediation companies and industrial hygienists.

“These companies do testing before and after cleanings,” he said. “They’ve actually given us some of our biggest compliments.”

A residential cleaning takes a two-man crew four to six hours to complete. ”We’re cleaning to national standards,” Moscato explained. “And we have certified technicians. Only 20 companies in the State of Illinois are certified through the National Air Duct Cleaners Association (NADCA) as air-system cleaning specialists.”

NADCA helps Moscato keep up on the latest equipment and products in the industry. Moscato is also the NADCA regional coordinator for the Midwest. When new members come into the organization, they contact him for help and answers to their questions. He also participates in NADCA’s mentorship program, helping new air-system cleaning businesses get established and grow.

Moscato is a strong believer in continuous improvement. He and his crews always review and critique their own work to get better and better at what they do.

“Nobody out there holds a candle to the quality of work that we do,” he said.

How often should residential air-system cleaning be done? Moscato said it depends on the environment in the house.

“When they get the systems cleaned, and cleaned properly – that’s the key – every three to five years if they want to stay on top of it,” he said. “If they have a very clean house, they use good filters, they change the filters regularly and take care of the equipment, people could do it every five to seven years."

And clothes dryer vents?

"Dryer vent cleanings (should be) every year or every two years, depending on how long the line is, how many elbows are in the line and how much laundry they do," Moscato explained. "If the dryer vent is a really short line, or the dryer’s on an outside wall, it’s not something that needs to be done. If it’s really short, you could just stick a vacuum in there.”

And Moscato still agrees with his parents' advice.

“Taking the high road is always much more difficult, time-consuming and expensive than the low road,” he said. “But I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Air Ducts Done Right is located at 8412 Wilmette Avenue, Suite D, in Darien. Contact them at 630-241-4710 or airducts@airddr.com, or go to www.airductsdoneright.com.