Whole-home duct cleaning
Dryer vent cleaning
Camera inspection
Sanitizing & deodorizingWhole-system duct and dryer vent check with before-and-after photos - you see exactly what came out of your vents
That "$99 whole-house special" is a bait ad - the real number appears once they are in your hallway, or the "clean" is a shop-vac at the register. We photograph the inside of your ducts before and after instead.
Fast, Reliable Air Duct Repair Across San Francisco
Air duct repair in San Francisco typically runs between $350 and $1,400 depending on whether we’re patching a pinhole leak in a single run or replacing a corroded duct section in a Victorian wall cavity. We also offer Dryer Vent Cleaning in San Francisco for homes with laundry ventilation concerns. Most repairs in the city are finished in a single visit, and every job receives a written price before any work begins. We work in the Sunset, the Richmond, Noe Valley, the Mission, Bernal Heights, and every neighborhood in between. Call (951) 527-6259 and you’ll speak with a person who knows San Francisco buildings, not a call center.
San Francisco forces a different playbook than the suburbs. The housing stock is old. The ducts are retrofit. The fog does real damage. Our Air Duct Repair crews carry the specialized equipment and parts that older city buildings require, and we schedule around your building’s access windows and parking constraints without making a production out of it.
Why Linden Air Duct San Francisco Is San Francisco’s Preferred Air Duct Repair Company
We earned our standing in San Francisco the slow way: by fixing ducts in buildings where the easy answer doesn’t exist. Victorians with duct runs threaded through former wiring chases. Edwardian flats with shared dryer vent stacks. Mid-century apartment buildings where the original galvanized ductwork is now more rust than metal. These are the jobs we do every week.
Every technician who steps into your hallway is background-checked, identity-verified, and photo-badged under the Threshold Standard. The tech’s name and photo arrive before the visit. They show a photo ID at the door. Every time. For homeowners who are alone during the day or have young children at home, that protocol isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the reason people choose us.
Since 2004, as part of the Threshold Group family, we’ve operated with a written guarantee on every repair. If something fails, we return for a free second visit. The 365-Day Done Right Promise is in writing on every job, not implied.
Styles & brands we work with
Duct Replacement in San Francisco
Duct replacement in San Francisco usually means cutting out a corroded or collapsed duct section in a tight wall or ceiling cavity and replacing it with new, properly sealed ductwork that matches the existing system’s static pressure requirements. We see this need most in pre-1960 buildings where galvanized steel has been quietly rusting for 60 or 70 years, often inside exterior walls where fog moisture is a constant companion.
When Replacement Beats Repair
If a duct has pinhole leaks in multiple spots, or the metal has thinned enough to crumble under light pressure, patching just delays the inevitable. We recommend replacement when more than about a third of a run’s surface shows rust bloom or when insulation and plaster dust are visibly pulling into the airstream through perforations.
What Replacement Costs Here
Expect $600 to $1,400 for a typical duct replacement in San Francisco, depending on length, ceiling height, and whether we’re working in a crawl space or a finished ceiling. A short, accessible run in an attic may run lower. A run buried in a lath-and-plaster ceiling will run higher. The written quote is yours before we start.
Ductwork Installation in San Francisco
Ductwork installation in San Francisco generally means adding a new branch run to a remodeled unit, replacing an entire trunk line, or tying a new room into an existing forced-air system. The city’s building stock makes this work different from a Tracy or a Livermore install: the ducts have to fit through spaces designed before forced air existed, and the materials need to handle salt air.
Retrofit Installs in Older Buildings
We’ve installed new supply runs through closets, around chimney breasts, and through joist bays in Victorians where no duct was ever meant to go. The job requires careful sizing calculations. Narrow runs create high static pressure, which is how you end up with a whistling register and a burned-out blower motor a year later.
What Installation Costs Here
New ductwork installation in San Francisco typically ranges from $900 to $2,800 depending on the run length, the number of turns, and whether the path is open framing or finished wall. We’ll walk you through the route before we cut anything. You approve the price in writing first.
Trusted Brands We Service in San Francisco
We work on duct systems connected to equipment from Honeywell, Aprilaire, Abatement Technologies, and Guardsman, and we use professional-grade tools from Rotobrush and Nikro on every San Francisco job. We also handle Trane repair in San Francisco when your system needs brand-specific expertise. We keep common repair parts stocked for older city systems, which means fewer return visits and less time with your system open. If you have a system from one of these brands that’s been chugging along for a couple decades, we know the failure patterns and how to repair around them.
Common Air Duct Repair Problems We See in San Francisco Homes
- Salt-fog corrosion inside exterior wall ducts. In the Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset, where the fog sits on buildings for hours a day, galvanized ductwork inside exterior walls develops rust pinholes that leak conditioned air into the wall cavity. We find this by static pressure testing and visual inspection with an endoscope.
- Shared dryer vent stacks in pre-1960 apartments. Many older buildings run one dryer vent riser up through multiple floors. Lint from the unit below clogs the riser above, slowing airflow and creating a fire hazard that the upstairs tenant can’t see from inside their own laundry closet.
- Whistling registers from retrofit supply runs. When a heating system is squeezed into a Victorian’s narrow wall cavities, the long, narrow runs create high static pressure. That’s the whistle you hear at the register, and it’s usually also cooking the blower motor slowly. A trained look at duct sizing fixes it.
- Asbestos tape on older galvanized ducts. Many 1920s through 1950s San Francisco duct systems still have asbestos tape sealing their joints. It’s intact but shedding fibers into the airstream. We follow containment protocols when working on or replacing these runs and dispose of material properly.
See the difference
Before
After
Before
After
Before
AfterPricing for Air Duct Repair in San Francisco, CA
We believe you should know the numbers before you pick up the phone. A simple duct patch in San Francisco runs $350 to $600. A duct section replacement runs $600 to $1,400. Full ductwork installation for a single room or a remodeled addition runs $900 to $2,800. What moves the number: access difficulty, ceiling height, whether we’re in a crawl space or a finished wall, and how much demolition is required to reach the damaged run.
Every quote is written before work starts. Every repair is covered by a written guarantee with a free second visit if the repair fails. Call (951) 527-6259 and we’ll give you a flat price for your specific system, not a range for someone else’s house.
We Also Serve Cities Near San Francisco
Along with our work across Air Duct Repair in San Francisco, we serve Daly City, South San Francisco, Alameda, and Berkeley. If you’re in one of those cities and dealing with a failed duct run or a whistling register, call (951) 527-6259 and we’ll tell you honestly whether it’s a repair or a replacement.
Serving San Francisco, CA - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the San Francisco area and know this community well. Use the map below to see our service coverage - if you’re nearby, we can almost certainly help.
FAQs About Air Duct Repair in San Francisco
Yes, often. Many Victorian duct runs are accessible from a crawl space, an attic, or a closet chase, and we can fish a scope down the run to locate the damage without cutting into finished walls. If the damaged section is inside a ceiling, we’ll open the smallest necessary access panel and repair the surface afterward, but we’ll tell you the access plan before we cut anything.
Homes within about five blocks of the water in the Sunset and Richmond see salt-laden fog almost daily during summer, and that moisture settles on the inside of exterior-wall ductwork. Over time, galvanized steel rusts from the inside, pinholes form, and the system starts pulling plaster dust and insulation into the air stream. It’s the most common repair trigger we see in these neighborhoods. Call (951) 527-6259 for a system check if you’re in this zone.
Yes, but the repair is only as good as the stack’s overall condition. We can isolate your unit’s branch and restore proper airflow through your section, and if we find a clog in the shared riser, we’ll document it and coordinate with your building manager so the whole stack gets cleared. A shared riser is a building-level issue, and we’ll tell you plainly what’s yours to fix and what needs the owner’s sign-off.
Yes. All of our repair and cleaning work follows NADCA protocols, including negative-pressure containment during teardown of old duct sections and proper handling of materials like asbestos tape. In the Outer Richmond, our tech opened a ceiling return in a 1924 flat to find galvanized supply ducts flaking with rust from decades of salt fog, their asbestos tape intact but shedding. We isolated the run at the air handler, swapped the corroded section for new ductwork, and reconnected to a Honeywell blower motor that had been fighting the extra static.
Whistling registers are almost always a static pressure problem, and in pre-1960 San Francisco buildings it usually means the repair tech spliced a section of duct that was a different size or left a kink in a narrow retrofit run. We’ll test the static pressure, inspect the run, and resize or straighten the ductwork so the whistle goes away without starving the blower. Call (951) 527-6259 for an estimate.
Call Linden Air Duct San Francisco for Your Air Duct Repair
If you live in San Francisco and your ducts are leaking, whistling, or clogged with decades of fog-driven rust, we’ll send a background-checked technician with the right equipment and a written price before any work starts. You’ll know their name and see their photo before they arrive. You won’t get a surprise invoice. You’ll get a written guarantee on every repair, backed by the 365-Day Done Right Promise.
Call (951) 527-6259 now for a free estimate. A live person answers, any time of day. We’ll schedule your visit and get your system moving air again without the guesswork.
Written by Marcus Veale, Owner at Linden Air Duct San Francisco, serving San Francisco since 2004.