The Strangest Things We’ve Found In Ductwork

We’ve been cleaning ductwork for a long time, and over the years we’ve found some pretty strange stuff. Here is a partial list of some of the things that we’ve found so far.

A dead fox, a raincoat, a running shoe, a cash box, diamond rings, besides the usual stuff such as hair, cereal, coins, dead mice, pencils and lots of dust. All kinds of old hockey and baseball cards. Pop cans, coffee cups and beer bottles are usual items.

We’ve found pieces of drywall, lunch bags, and we even found an open can of sardines that was still half full and was growing.

There were several cars from an old wooden train set, marbles and all kinds of half-melted plastic toys. We used to have an aquarium full of neat stuff that we found in people’s ductwork that we used as part of a homeshow display, and I will always remember how alot of people were quite surprised to see that collection.

One time I went to do a service call because the homeowner was complaining that one of his air vents was not blowing any cooling into their family room. It was an older wall vent with big wide slots on it. I took the grill off the wall and looked down it with a flashlight and a mirror and I could see what looked like a book.

It was about 10 feet down, so with the owner’s approval, I measured it out and had to break a hole into the drywall ceiling of the basement so that I could cut a hole into the duct. I ended up pulling out 19 books, as well as 45 VCR tapes. By the time I was done there were a few good stacks of things on the table. No wonder he wasn’t getting any airflow!

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I patched up the hole in the duct with sheet metal no problem. I could have installed a grill to hide the hole in the drywall, but the guy said he’d take care of the drywall repair himself. He was just so happy that he now had perfect air going to his family room again, because at the time it was over 30 degrees outside. He also said that he’d been wondering what had been happening to all his tapes. He had a four year old son who had been dropping that stuff down the duct. 🙂

If you need your ducts repaired or cleaned, or need a vent moved or are wondering if you can get more airflow into certain parts of your home then give us a call. We are total problem solvers in this area, and we even do the small jobs that no one else seems to want to bother with.