Carpet cleaning business owners are on the hunt for additional services they offer to their clients — services that can add valuable dollars to their profit margins.

While most concentrate on diversifying into cleaning and maintaining other floor types besides carpet — such as tile and grout, marble, wood and more — they often ignore other services that aren’t directly related to the floor care industry but are still an important aspect of the cleaning industry.

There is money to be made by taking their eyes up off the floor and looking elsewhere.

Enter the air duct cleaning industry. This is a money-making opportunity that can benefit not only the business owner, but the consumer as well.

Revenue opportunities

Like most services, pricing duct cleaning is often based on time involved on the job.

"Heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems vary by geography," according to Cliff Zlotnik, one of the hosts on IAQ Radio, an online platform that features, via live transmission each Friday, a topic on indoor air quality issues. "In the Northeast, we have many two-story houses with full basements. Thoroughly cleaning a forced air HVAC system in home in the Northeast will take a two-man crew about four hours."

"These services typically — but not always — range in cost from $450 to $1,000 per heating and cooling system, depending on the services offered, the size of the system to be cleaned, system accessibility, climatic region, and level of contamination," stated Joe Hughes, president of the IAQ Training Institute and also a host on IAQ Radio.

Hughes adds a warning. "I would not fall into the trap of offering this service for too little money or for offering less than a thorough cleaning of the entire system. You do not want to be one of the bait-and-switch companies out there that get there foot in the door with a $69.00 duct cleaning advertisement."

A company considering adding air duct cleaning to their service offerings would need to determine their own costs and profit margins.

Price entry into this industry varies, but is often considerably less than an entry-level carpet cleaning system.

Selling health

Clean carpet and upholstery is important to better indoor air quality, and many business owners sell their services by educating their clients of this fact.

"With proper training and education on HVAC systems they can diversify into helping customers maintain healthy housing in many ways including HVAC cleaning," Hughes stated.

Zlotnik echoed those thoughts.

"Carpet cleaners have a number of revenue opportunities of removing particulate soil before in hits the floor drapes, upholstery, mattresses, and the HVAC system is another opportunity," he said. "You are removing airborne particulate that settles, so each method of removing it offers a potential profit center, such as the sale of vacuum cleaners, air cleaners, microfiber cloths and cleaning products, and services such as drapery cleaning, upholstery cleaning, mattress cleaning and HVAC cleaning. Many homeowners neglect cleaning their dryer vents, this is an easy and low cost diversification for carpet cleaners."

While making money is always on the minds of entrepreneurs, creating a healthier indoor environment for clients should never be dismissed as an important issue.

Cleaning for profit and cleaning for health — air duct cleaning does both.