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.
Aprilaire HVAC Cleaning in San Antonio: What to Know First
Aprilaire HVAC cleaning in San Antonio costs $385 – $640 for a full system cleaning – that’s the coil, blower, cabinet, and drain pan – and most jobs wrap up in 3 – 5 hours. We’re an independent Aprilaire service provider, not a factory affiliate, which means we tell you what’s actually wrong before quoting anything. You’ll get a written price before any tool touches your system, and the quote doesn’t change when the tech is standing in your hallway. This page is for San Antonio homeowners running Aprilaire whole-home air purifiers, dehumidifiers, or ventilation tied into a central HVAC setup and who want the full system actually clean, not just the easy-to-reach parts. Call (254) 347-3897 for a free estimate.
Key Takeaways:
- Full Aprilaire HVAC cleaning in San Antonio runs $385 – $640 for a typical single-system home
- Written price before work starts, every time, no door-change games
- 365-Day Done Right Promise: if it’s not right, we come back and fix it free
- We clean the coil, blower wheel, housing, and drain pan – not just what’s visible
How Aprilaire Products Fail – and How We Fix Them
Aprilaire gear is built well, but San Antonio’s humidity and hard water push it into failure modes we see over and over. Here’s what actually happens in the field:
- Aprilaire 5000 series air purifier plates caked with hard-water scale. San Antonio water on a bad day runs 250+ ppm dissolved minerals. That scale gets baked onto the EAC plates and kills the electrostatic charge. Symptom: the unit hums but the “clean” light never stays on. Our fix: plate removal, acid-descaler soak, re-install, and a capacitance check on the frame. We don’t sell you new plates unless the framing is cracked – most plates clean up fine.
- AprilAire 600 series humidifier pad clogged and draining mineral soup into the return plenum. If the pad’s not changed before the minerals fuse, water backs up and pools – then it leaks into the return. The tell is a white crust line at the base of the humidifier. We pull the panel, clean the distribution tray trough, replace the pad with the correct evaporative media, and flush the drain line. A $22 pad left too long becomes a $1,200 return plenum repair. We see it in Alamo Heights ranch homes constantly.
- AprilAire blower cabinet on high-static duct systems after three or four San Antonio summers. The blower wheel vanes load up with a paste of dust plus condensation film – and Aprilaire media filters, when they fill up and the homeowner doesn’t replace them, actually increase the static pressure and accelerate that buildup. Symptom: you hear the blower pushing but feel weak airflow at the registers. Our fix: full cabinet negative-pressure extraction (the Nikro HEPA unit), wheel pull-and-hand-clean if the buildup is thick, and a static pressure reading once it’s back together so you know the before and after.
- Bypass humidifier damper stuck in winter position through the Texas summer. That damper routes air over the pad – leave it open in a San Antonio July and you’re dumping hot, humid return air across a dry pad, which grows biofilm on the pad frame and feeds mold into the cabinet. We find this on tract homes near Lackland AFB where nobody ever flips the damper. We clean the cabinet interior, treat with an EPA-registered antimicrobial after cleaning, and re-set the damper with a clearly labeled summer/winter tag.
- AprilAire filter cabinet grille leaking bypass air around a collapsed foam gasket. The gasket on the media cabinet door dries out after about ten years in attic heat – 140°F attics are standard here. When the gasket fails, unfiltered air slips around the filter and dust-loads the evaporator coil. You see it as a gray stripe on the filter edge. We replace the gasket – OEM where warranty is active, quality aftermarket where it isn’t – and re-seat the door so the filter actually seals.
Styles & brands we work with




Our Aprilaire HVAC Cleaning Process
Here’s how a typical Aprilaire cleaning runs at Cardinal Air Duct San Antonio:
- 1
Call or book. A live person answers 24/7 – no voicemail loops, no “we’ll call you back” runaround. You tell us what Aprilaire equipment you’re running and what symptoms you’re seeing. We schedule a live trackable arrival window, Relay Standard style.
- 2
Arrival and diagnostics. Our tech walks the system with you, listens to what it’s doing, checks temperature splits, static pressure, and the condition of any Aprilaire filtration components. We explain what we find in plain English as we go – you’re not getting a mystery verdict.
- 3
Written price. Before any tool touches the unit, you get a flat dollar figure for the full job. It doesn’t change at the door. This is the no-bait part of our business and we’re not subtle about it.
- 4
Cleaning and extraction. We set up negative-pressure extraction on the air handler, then go after the evaporator coil, blower wheel, housing, drain pan, and any Aprilaire accessories tied into the airflow. The Rotobrush does the mechanical agitation; the Nikro HEPA vacuum pulls loosened debris straight out of the airstream – negative-pressure extraction means the junk goes into the vacuum, not back into your living room.
- 5
Parts decision and repair. If a part is shot – a cracked plate frame, a bad humidifier solenoid, a gasket so brittle it crumbles – we lay out your options: OEM if you want factory parts and your warranty is active, quality aftermarket if you want savings and the warranty’s already done. No upsell ambush. You pick.
- 6
Test, proof, and guarantee. We re-check airflow, run a performance pass, and hand you before-and-after photos of the actual coil and blower. Every repair comes with a written guarantee and a free second visit if it fails. The whole job is covered by the 365-Day Done Right Promise.
See the difference
Before
After
Before
After
Before
AfterWhat Aprilaire HVAC Cleaning Costs in San Antonio
Straight numbers, no teaser coupon dance:
- Evaporator coil cleaning (single system): $185 – $310
- Blower wheel pull-and-clean: $140 – $240
- Full air handler clean (coil, blower, cabinet, drain pan): $385 – $640
- AprilAire 5000 plate clean + service check: $95 – $165
- Humidifier pad replacement + tray/flush-line clean: $125 – $195
- Condenser coil clean (outdoor unit): $110 – $190
What pushes the number higher: two systems in the attic, a coil that hasn’t been touched since the Bush administration, or accessibility that requires pulling a furnace door off in a crawlspace. What pushes it lower: a single-story ranch with the air handler in the hallway closet, regular filter changes, and an Aprilaire that sees service every couple years. Call (254) 347-3897 and we can give you an exact range for your specific setup – the estimate is free.
Why San Antonio Homeowners Call Cardinal Air Duct San Antonio for Aprilaire Work
We run professional-grade equipment and we don’t apologize for naming it: Rotobrush rotary brush systems for coil and wheel agitation, Nikro HEPA-rated negative-air units for extraction, and Abatement Technologies containment so the dust you’re removing doesn’t find its way back into your kitchen. Our techs are background-checked, uniformed, and you’ll know their name before they ring the bell. If your Aprilaire is retired and beyond economical repair, we also service Lennox, Trane, and Carrier equipment, so we can give you an honest repair-versus-replace answer without the brand-bias pitch. Omar Haddad built this shop around one thing: no vague quotes, no surprise charges, just clean work and equipment that actually does it. Clean ducts, straight answers, real price – that’s the whole pitch.
FAQs
No, not when it’s done properly. Aprilaire’s warranty covers defects in materials and workmanship – it doesn’t require you to leave the unit dirty. We clean to manufacturer-standard procedures and use OEM parts on any warranty-active repairs, so you’re protected either way. We’re independent – we’ll never pretend to be an authorized Aprilaire service provider – but we do the job so it doesn’t trigger a warranty denial. That means correct torque, correct media, correct drain routing.
A full air handler clean on a single-system San Antonio home runs $385 – $640; individual components like a coil-only cleaning land $185 – $310. The price depends on your specific equipment arrangement, accessibility, and how long it’s been since the last service. We hand you a written price before any work starts and it doesn’t climb once we’re in the attic. Call (254) 347-3897 for a free quote on your exact system.
Both. We carry a range of Aprilaire media, humidifier pads, gaskets, and common electrical components in the truck, and we can source anything else same-week. If a part is done, we show you the failure and give you the OEM-versus-aftermarket price gap before you spend a dollar. No ordering parts you didn’t approve.
A full-system clean runs 3 – 5 hours for a typical single-unit home. A coil-only job is often done in 2 hours. We work clean – drop cloths, shoe covers, and the containment unit running before we start pulling dust. You get before-and-after photos so you can see your own coil, not just take our word it’s better.
This is the real question, and it’s why we hand you photo proof: before-and-after shots of the coil, blower wheel, and cabinet interior from your actual unit, not a stock photo from a brochure. You also get static pressure readings before and after where it matters, so the improvement is measured, not argued. And the 365-Day Done Right Promise backs the whole job – if it’s not right within a year, we return and make it right at no charge.
Written by Omar Haddad, Owner, Cardinal Air Duct San Antonio at Cardinal Air Duct San Antonio, serving San Antonio and nearby areas.