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.
Rotobrush Register & Grille Cleaning: The Pasadena Owner’s Guide
We stock and install register and grille cleaning kits compatible with Rotobrush systems for homes throughout Pasadena. The installed price typically runs $225 to $475 depending on system model and scope of cleaning. Same-week scheduling is normal. Most owners discover they have an issue when they notice a room that’s suddenly warmer than the rest of the house, or when they pull a grille off to paint and find the vanes caked with a gray felt that didn’t used to be there. That buildup is usually fine dust and pet hair that should have been pulled out during a cleaning pass but wasn’t, because the brush contact had worn past where it could do anything.
Which Rotobrush Models This Applies To
The register and grille cleaning kit works across the Rotobrush air duct cleaning machine line, including the older aiR+ series, the R5000, and the Compact. Compatibility matters less by model year and more by the quick-connect fitting on your vacuum hose. Rotobrush changed the locking collar diameter on some mid-2010s revisions, so a kit that fits a 2012 machine may not seat correctly on a 2019 one. The part number is printed on a small white tag on the hose end. If that tag has worn off, measure the outside diameter of the collar: 1.75 inches matches the current spec, 1.5 inches is the older standard. On the OEM versus aftermarket question: genuine Rotobrush vanes last longer, but a quality aftermarket brush from our stock often costs 30 to 40 percent less and holds up fine for residential work in Pasadena, where the bigger threat is fine construction dust from the constant remodeling of older homes near the Rose Bowl and Caltech. We’ll always tell you which way to go based on how your system gets used. Hollis Air Duct Pasadena is an independent service provider and not affiliated with Rotobrush. We also keep register and grille cleaning parts on hand for Lennox, Trane, and Carrier systems.
Styles & brands we work with
Signs Your Rotobrush Register & Grille Cleaning Is Failing
- Visible dust accumulation on grille vanes within weeks of a cleaning. The brush is no longer making firm contact with the metal. Worn vanes slip over the surface instead of agitating against it, leaving behind exactly what the pass was supposed to remove.
- The grille cleaning attachment wobbles during operation. A bent spindle or a loose quick-connect can cause the rotating head to oscillate. That wobble scratches powder-coated grilles and sends a vibration back through the hose that you’ll feel in your hand.
- Uneven cleaning pattern on register surfaces. If one half of the grille comes clean and the other stays dull and gray, the brush head is canted. This usually traces back to a worn bearing inside the collar, not the vanes themselves.
- You hear a high-pitched chirp or squeal when the brush is spinning. That’s metal-on-metal at the bearing race. It will not self-correct, and running it longer just scores the spindle to the point where the whole kit needs replacing instead of just the bearing.
- Airflow at the register feels weaker after cleaning than before. The cleaning pass should never reduce airflow. If it does, debris was pushed deeper into the duct rather than extracted. Fatigued vanes can do that when they deflect instead of scrape.
See the difference
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After
Before
After
Before
AfterReplacement Cost & What’s Included
In Pasadena, a register and grille cleaning kit replacement runs $225 to $475 installed. The spread comes down to three things: whether you need the full kit or just the brush head, whether the quick-connect collar has to be swapped to match your Rotobrush hose, and how many grilles we’re cleaning as part of the service. The part itself is usually $85 to $160 for a quality aftermarket head and $140 to $230 for genuine Rotobrush. Labor is the rest. Every quote at Hollis Air Duct Pasadena is written before we touch the system. The price on that sheet is the price on the invoice. The work is covered by our 365-Day Done Right Promise: if the kit fails within a year, we return and replace it at no charge. That includes a second visit if the first replacement was defective, which is rare but not something we expect you to gamble on.
DIY or Call Us?
Register and grille cleaning is not a high-tension or electrical component, so there’s no serious injury risk in swapping out a worn brush head yourself. You can safely pop the grille off, inspect the vanes, and measure the collar diameter. What goes wrong with DIY on Rotobrush equipment is usually the quick-connect. If the collar doesn’t seat flush, the spinning head can come off at speed and damage nearby furniture or break the grille it was supposed to clean. We’ve also seen homeowners order a kit online based on the wrong model year and then fight to return a used part. If you want it matched to your specific machine, priced in writing, and installed the same visit, call us at (626) 469-5477 and we’ll bring the right part.
FAQs
A genuine Rotobrush brush head used on residential jobs typically lasts 18 to 36 months before the vanes lose enough stiffness to matter. In Pasadena, we often see the shorter end of that range because the air in older San Gabriel Valley homes carries drywall dust and fine grit from decades of Los Angeles smog that abrades the vanes faster than a cleaner environment would. Aftermarket heads run 12 to 24 months. You’ll notice the decline in performance before the part physically breaks. Call (626) 469-5477 for an inspection and an honest read on whether yours needs replacing now or next season.
In most cases the brush head can be replaced individually without swapping the entire hose extension or handle assembly. If only the vanes are worn, that’s a $85 to $160 fix. If the bearing at the collar is chirping or the spindle is bent, you’re into the $225 to $475 full-kit range because the lower-cost fix won’t hold. We won’t sell you a full kit when a brush head does the job. Call (626) 469-5477 and we’ll tell you which one you actually need.
The swap itself usually takes 45 to 90 minutes from arrival to cleanup. That includes removing the old kit, fitting the new one to your Rotobrush hose, testing the connection, and running a pass on one grille so you can see and feel the difference before we pack up. We leave the site clean and take the old part with us unless you want it.
We carry the most common Rotobrush-compatible brush heads, bearings, and quick-connect collars on the truck, so the majority of Pasadena calls are completed the first visit. If your machine has an unusual collar diameter or an older-series fitting, we’ll have the right part ordered and typically back within three to five business days. Written quote before any work starts, either way.
Written by Roy Castellanos, Owner, Hollis Air Duct Pasadena at Hollis Air Duct Pasadena, serving Pasadena and nearby areas.