Charlie:
Elizabeth in Cypress says that she has black soot-y looking flakes, she says, coming out of a vent in her downstairs unit when it turns on. Is this an A/C person or a duct-cleaning person? It seems only to be that one vent and she hasn’t seen it anywhere else.
Tom:
I wish I could talk to her because I suspect she’s burning candles in her room.
Podcast: Play in new window
Charlie:
You’ve always been looking for a woman with black, soot-y flakes?
Tom:
Yes.
Charlie:
Okay.
Tom:
Burning candles in that room and it’s showing up. Anytime you burn candles in a house, you will get soot forming especially on metal and plastic surfaces like your refrigerator, your grills for your air conditioner, that kind of thing, because it doesn’t burn clean. If you do a lot of candles in that room, I suspect that’s what’s happening, if it’s soot.
Now, if it’s mildew that’s on the ceiling that comes from a cold register, that’s just a little cleaning, but you do not need duct cleaning. It’s not flying out of the ducts. I can say that for sure. It is something that’s happening right there on the surface and in that room.
It is the time, Charlie, where people start to think about their spring check up. They can have their air conditioning, Absolute Comfort Air, come out and do a spring checkup on the air conditioning system and make sure the ducts are all sealed nice and tight in that room. If she’s going to get this and she’s burning candles in the room, I know you probably love it, but stop it. It’s not good. That’s why they’re coming out with candles that don’t burn anymore.
Charlie:
You can do soy candles, right?
Tom:
You can do anything without animal fat, but it still hurts the interior air quality, no matter what you burn. I know people are into it, but now that’s why they’re coming out with candles that don’t have a flame. They sit on those little … You haven’t seen one of those, have you?
Charlie:
How is that a candle?
Tom:
That’s what they call it. The flameless candles. Somebody is coming up with a solution, and it didn’t work on Shark Tank.