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 Duct Sealing Across Pasadena
Duct sealing in Pasadena typically runs $450 – $1,800 depending on how much of the system leaks and how hard it is to reach. On older homes, we usually find the real problem on the first camera inspection: cracked connections, gaps at every joint, and original materials that stopped holding air decades ago. If you’re noticing weak airflow in one room, dust building up fast, or heating bills that climb every winter, the fix is often sealing the ducts, not replacing the furnace. Our crews work in Pasadena every week, know the neighborhoods, and quote a written price before any work starts. Call (626) 469-5477 to get an exact number.
Why Hollis Air Duct Pasadena Is Pasadena’s Preferred Duct Sealing Company
Pasadena homeowners call us because the older the house, the louder the duct problems are. A 1923 Craftsman on Mar Vista Avenue does not leak air the way a 1998 tract home in east Pasadena does. Our technicians have spent enough hours in local crawlspaces to know what they will find before the camera goes in: galvanized steel separated at the seams, disconnected runs under additions, and the occasional remnant of a gravity furnace that was never properly brought up to modern airflow standards. That local knowledge means we show up prepared, not surprised.
Every job goes through the same gate before work begins: a written price, a walkthrough of what we found, and a clear explanation of what sealing will and will not fix. The 365-Day Done Right Promise applies to every sealing job we do in Pasadena. If the repair fails within a year, we come back and make it right at no charge. That includes a free second visit. No negotiation, no caveat buried in fine print. Roy Castellanos runs this location to the same standard: arrive inside the quoted window, price in writing, leave the site clean.
Pasadena is full of competent contractors. Few of them will hand you a written guarantee covering a full year on duct sealing. That difference matters when you are paying to fix something you cannot see without a camera.
Styles & brands we work with
Duct Repair in Pasadena
Duct Repair in Pasadena usually means reconnecting separated runs, patching rusted sections of original steel, or cutting out sections that are too far gone and replacing them with insulated flex or new galvanized duct. In Pasadena’s pre-1940 housing stock, we rarely find one isolated problem. It is more often a chain: a run disconnected at a joint, which made the blower pull harder, which pulled another joint loose downstream. Repair means walking the whole line, camera first, and fixing every failure point in one visit.
Typical duct repair here runs $300 – $900. Smaller jobs like resecuring a single fallen run and sealing two joints sit at the low end. A crawlspace with multiple disconnects, corroded sections, and access through a 20-inch hatch sits at the high end. We price the full system in writing before we cut anything.
Camera-First Diagnosis
We do not guess. Before any repair quote is written, we run a camera through the accessible supply and return lines. In Pasadena homes with original steel ducts, that camera usually finds gaps at fittings, rust-through at the low points, and sometimes a dead rodent or two decades of fine silt. You see the video. We explain what it means in plain terms. Then you decide.
Repair vs. Replacement
Most Pasadena ducts do not need full replacement. Sealing and targeted section repair handles the majority of what we see, even on 100-year-old systems. We recommend replacement only when the steel itself is structurally gone or the duct sizing is so wrong for the blower that sealing will not fix the pressure imbalance.
Air Duct Sealing in Pasadena
Air Duct Sealing in Pasadena means closing every leak point in the supply and return system so conditioned air reaches the rooms, not the wall cavities and crawlspace. We apply mastic at joints, seams, and takeoffs, and use metal tape where the NAIMA guide says it belongs. In a typical Pasadena bungalow, sealing reduces dust intrusion, evens out room temperatures, and takes load off a blower that has been running against leaks since the day it was installed.
Full-system sealing here runs $450 – $1,800. A small single-story home with accessible ducts in a basement or crawlspace lands on the lower end. A two-story Spanish Colonial with ducts buried in unpermitted additions and original steel in tight joist bays lands higher. The written quote reflects what the camera showed, not what a tech guessed at from the driveway.
Mastic and Metal Tape Done Right
We use water-based mastic on joints and seams, the same product commercial HVAC crews use. It is not duct tape. It dries into a hard, durable seal that does not peel under heat cycles. Where the NAIMA standard calls for tape, we use UL 181-rated metal tape. Duct tape has no place in this trade, and we do not carry it on the truck.
Sealing, Then Verifying
After the sealing work is done, we test static pressure and airflow at the registers. You should feel the difference in the rooms that were starving. We also take before-and-after photos of the problem joints so you can see what the camera found and what we closed.
Trusted Brands We Service in Pasadena
We stock sealing materials and replacement components from brands Pasadena homeowners already recognize: Rotobrush for rotary brush cleaning before sealing, Abatement Technologies for HEPA negative-air filtration on homes with heavy dust and debris, and Aprilaire for filtration upgrades that keep newly sealed ducts cleaner longer. When a Pasadena job requires a specific fitting or replacement section, we carry common sizes on the truck, which means fewer return trips. If we need something uncommon for a 1920s duct dimension, we source it before the scheduled day, not after we have opened the wall. A sealed system is only as good as the filtration in front of it, so we explain what your options are and quote them separately, in writing.
Common Duct Sealing Problems We See in Pasadena Homes
- Cheesecloth-and-tar seals from the 1920s. In Bungalow Heaven and other landmark districts, original ducts were sealed with cheesecloth dipped in tar. A century later, that material has dried, cracked, and pulled away from the steel, leaving every connection open to crawling dust and pollen. Sealing these systems means removing only what is already failing and replacing it with mastic and metal tape, never stripping the ductwork itself.
- Undersized gravity-furnace ducts. Homes built before forced-air furnaces became standard often have duct runs sized for gravity flow, which moves far less air than a modern blower. Those runs get crushed, disconnected, and overheated. Sealing alone will not fix a fundamentally undersized duct, and we will tell you that plainly before quoting work that would waste your money.
- Corroded galvanized steel at the seams. After 80 – 100 years, steel ducts split at the longitudinal seams and at the elbow fittings. Air leaks out, and crawlspace air leaks in. We find these splits with the camera, mark their location, and quote section repair or replacement based on what the metal actually looks like, not what a guess from the register says.
- Leaks introduced by unpermitted additions. Pasadena has plenty of homes where a den or bedroom was added without pulling the duct layout onto a new plan. The result is a rambling, undersized, sometimes spliced-together run that leaks at every improvised connection. Sealing these properly means tracing the entire run and often replacing a section of flex that was never installed to code in the first place.
See the difference
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After
Before
After
Before
AfterPricing for Duct Sealing in Pasadena, CA
Here is what Pasadena homeowners should expect. Duct sealing ranges from $450 to $1,800 for a standard single-family home. Duct repair sits between $300 and $900. A combined repair-and-seal job on an older home, where we fix disconnects and then seal the system, typically lands between $700 and $2,200. What moves the number: crawlspace access, the age and diameter of the original steel, how many runs are disconnected, and whether we need Abatement Technologies HEPA filtration running during the work. We give one flat price per system, written down, before any work starts. That price does not move at the door. Call (626) 469-5477 and we will set up a walkthrough and camera inspection. The estimate is free.
We Also Serve Cities Near Pasadena
Our crews cover Pasadena directly and regularly schedule work in Duct Sealing in Pasadena plus Altadena, San Gabriel, Alhambra, and Temple City. If you live just outside Pasadena but the house has the same early-20th-century ductwork, the same pricing logic applies. Call (626) 469-5477 and mention your street and cross street so we can confirm the schedule window.
Serving Pasadena, CA - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Pasadena 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 Duct Sealing in Pasadena
No. Sealing the joints and seams does not require removing asbestos-wrapped ducts. In fact, leaving asbestos wrap undisturbed is the correct approach, and sealing can often be done without touching the wrap at all. If the wrap is damaged or deteriorating, we stop and refer you to a licensed asbestos abatement contractor before any sealing work proceeds. That is the only safe sequence. Call (626) 469-5477 and we will tell you what we can see with the camera before anyone disturbs anything.
Yes. The cheesecloth and tar you are describing is the old sealing material, not insulation, and in most cases it has already failed. We remove only the dried, cracked remnants at the joint, then apply mastic and metal tape to create the seal. The underlying steel duct and the home’s historic fabric stay untouched. We recently sealed ducts beneath a Craftsman bungalow on Mar Vista Avenue where the original 1923 galvanized supply and return ducts had gaps at every joint, some still wrapped in crumbling cheesecloth and tar. The Abatement Technologies HEPA filtration held negative pressure while we removed loose debris, and the mastic and tape per NADCA standards restored balanced airflow without altering the house. That is the standard we apply in every Pasadena landmark home. Call (626) 469-5477 for a camera inspection and quote.
You are dealing with a system that likely grew in pieces. The original runs from the 1920s or 30s meet newer flex duct that was added when the room was built, and the connection points are rarely sealed to any standard. Sealing a system like this means mapping every run, finding where the improvised connections leak, and quoting section repair plus full sealing. It usually costs more than a straightforward single-era home because we are correcting old installation shortcuts along with the sealing work. The written quote will show you exactly where the money goes.
No. Sealing closes leaks. It does not clean the inside of the ducts. That is why we often pair sealing with a proper rotary brush cleaning using Rotobrush equipment, so the system is clean and tight when we are done. If you seal a dirty system, you lock the dust in place, which defeats a big part of the purpose. We quote cleaning and sealing as separate line items so you can see the cost of each. For Pasadena homes with original steel and decades of accumulation, doing both in the same visit is usually the right move. Call (626) 469-5477 to talk through what your system needs.
Through the crawlspace, from underneath. Most Pasadena bungalows built between 1900 and 1940 run supply ducts under the floor, which means the access is the crawlspace hatch, not the attic. Our technicians work from below with camera equipment, headlamps, and the hand tools to reach joints without cutting unnecessary access holes. It is slow, dirty work, and it is exactly the kind of job where a less experienced crew will tell you the ducts are “fine” because no one wants to crawl under a 100-year-old house. We will show you the video from under there. The quote will include the access reality, not a fantasy of easy reach.
Contact Pasadena’s Duct Sealing Team
If your Pasadena home has 1920s-era ducts, rooms that never warm up or cool down, or dust that comes back a week after cleaning, the problem is probably in the ductwork. We serve the whole city, from Bungalow Heaven to the Arroyo Seco, and we quote every job in writing before work starts. Roy Castellanos and the crew at Hollis Air Duct Pasadena stand behind every sealing job with the 365-Day Done Right Promise. Call (626) 469-5477 for a free estimate and a camera inspection of your duct system.
Written by Roy Castellanos, Owner at Hollis Air Duct Pasadena, serving Pasadena with air duct cleaning and sealing since 2004.