A Linden company - serving San Francisco, CA

Before & After Gallery - Linden Air Duct San Francisco

Every visit starts with

Whole-system duct and dryer vent check with before-and-after photos - you see exactly what came out of your vents

Worth knowing

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.

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Air Duct Cleaning Before & After in San Francisco, CA

Most San Francisco homeowners have never seen the inside of their own ducts. That’s by design, in a way. The system is hidden behind walls and above ceilings, and unless you pull a vent cover and look, you simply don’t know what’s been moving through the air you breathe. The photos below show real work from real jobs in San Francisco, shot by our technicians with the homeowner standing right there. No stock images, no staged dust. Just the air path before we opened it, and after we closed it.

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Recent Transformations

Furnace Duct Cleaning in a Sunset District Home

Inside a furnace return duct in a San Francisco Sunset District home before cleaning, showing gray dust and debris caked along duct walls — Before: The return-side duct in a Sunset District home, after years of unfiltered air moving through a 1970s system.

This home near 19th and Judah had a furnace pushing warm air through ducts that had not been opened in over a decade. The return-side walls carried a gray paste of dust, pet dander, and fog-cycle moisture that had hardened in place. We ran negative-pressure extraction through the full trunk line with HEPA-filtered containment, then hand-finished each boot at the vent. The owner watched the camera pass through the duct after the job and asked us to run it twice more because she did not believe it was the same pipe.

The same furnace return duct after professional air duct cleaning, showing bare galvanized metal with no visible dust — After: The same section of duct. Bare galvanized metal, no visible accumulation, airflow restored to the room’s furthest register.

Condo Air Duct Cleaning in SoMa with Shared Building Airflow

Dust and construction debris inside an air duct in a SoMa San Francisco condo before cleaning — Before: A condo duct in SoMa carrying years of dust from neighboring units and a 2018 building renovation.

Condominium systems in SoMa present a problem single-family homes rarely see: the air you get is only partly your own. Shared riser ducts and fire-damper gaps let dust from other units move through your registers. This homeowner had wiped black film from her baseboard vents twice a month for six months before calling. We mapped her trunk line, sealed the supply side at the plenum, and cleaned under negative pressure so nothing pushed into the rooms. The register in her bedroom, which had previously moved barely any air, started throwing air across the room.

Clean air duct in a SoMa condo after professional cleaning with no visible dust — After: Same duct after extraction and register cleaning. Homeowner stopped wiping baseboards weekly, which she reported with some relief.

Dryer Vent Duct Cleaning in a Richmond District Laundry Room

Lint packed inside a dryer vent duct in a San Francisco Richmond District home before cleaning — Before: A dryer vent in the Richmond District packed with lint down most of its 14-foot run to the exterior wall cap.

The dryer in this Richmond District home had started taking two cycles to dry a single load of towels. That is not a dryer problem. It is a vent problem. The owner had lived there four years and never once thought about the vent, which is exactly what is normal about dryer vents and exactly why they need cleaning. We ran a rotary brush through the full run, cleared a lint bypass clog at the exterior cap, and showed the owner a photo of the pile we pulled out. The dryer finished its next load in 38 minutes.

A clean dryer vent duct after professional cleaning showing the bare metal interior — After: The same dryer vent after cleaning. Airflow returned to the exterior cap, and cycle time dropped immediately.

Air Duct Repair Following a Bernal Heights Remodel

A crushed air duct branch line in a Bernal Heights San Francisco home before repair — Before: A flexible duct branch line in Bernal Heights that a previous remodel crew had crimped with a strap and left in place.

Remodeling crews are not duct crews. They do their best, but when a plumber needs to run a line through a joist bay, your flex duct is the thing that gets moved. In this Bernal Heights home near Precita Park, one branch line to the upstairs bedroom had been crimped down to about 40 percent of its width. The room never got warm in July fog the way it should. We cut the damaged section, replaced it with properly supported R-6 flex, and sealed every joint with mastic. The repair is covered in writing for 365 days, and if it does not hold, we come back at no charge.

The repaired air duct in a Bernal Heights home showing properly supported flex duct with sealed joints — After: New flex duct with sealed joints and proper strapping. Airflow to the upstairs bedroom restored.

Register and Grill Restoration in a Pac Heights Apartment

A dirty and corroded floor register in a Pacific Heights San Francisco apartment before cleaning — Before: A floor register in Pacific Heights with years of paint overspray, surface rust, and impacted debris between the fins.

Not every air quality problem is deep in the duct. Sometimes it is right at the register, which is the only part of the system a homeowner actually sees. This Pacific Heights apartment had original 1920s floor registers that had been painted over repeatedly and had decades of dust packed between the louvers. We removed each register, degreased and restored them, cleaned the register boots beneath, and remounted them with new gasketing. You would be surprised how much a clean register changes the look of a room, and the owner said exactly that when she saw the first one done.

A restored 1920s floor register in Pacific Heights after cleaning and remounting — After: The same register restored and remounted. Clean metal, free-moving louvers, and a tight seal to the boot.

Want Results Like These?

Every job above started with one phone call to (951) 527-6259. You get a written price before any work begins, a tech whose name and photo are sent to you before arrival, and work you can watch happen in real time. If you are in San Francisco and want to see your own before-and-after, call us. We will walk you through exactly what we find and exactly what we did, with photos to prove it.

Written by Marcus Veale, Owner at Linden Air Duct San Francisco, serving San Francisco since 2004.

Before & after

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