So hi,

nice to be here and thanks in advance to anyone who chimes in. Much appreciated.

I live on the 12th floor of a condo and we have had a nightmare for three years with our HVAC.

it came with the unit. it was the original ( 1976) a Bryant. Worked pretty good. But one of our hvac cabinet walls got mold in it and it ended up inside the system. Aside from that the coolant was to expensive to recharge as it’s been phased out.

wife and I developed breathing issues, lost our voice, lots of mucus. You get the picture.

had the wall remediate by the HOA as they owned it, but had to get a new system. it’s got 2 UV lights, water trap, merch 13 filter, all that shit.

but we are still having symptoms just less severe symptoms.

I belive this is cause a lot of stuff is past the filter in the vents Being reintroduced via the vents after the filter. It’s a small apart just about 1,000sq feet. It’s almost a straight shot of venting. safe it has a turn at the beginning going outside to the closet on the balcony. The vents seem clean aside from a thin layer of caked on dust on the bottom. One issue is the vents are “L” shaped so at the turn there is a small wall of air directors. no one in NOVA will even send a camera to show me the turn as apparently discovering mold makes them liable? so I can only star at it via my mag light and Apple phone and I can see lots of particulate built up there. as well the assholes who built it had pop corn ceilings sprayed on and they over sprayed into the f’n vents.

So I need advice on encapsulation as right now it’s covered in m3 metallic tape. is there anything safe to spray into an HVAV vent To encapsulate the popcorn as it is northern va and all pop corn here seeming has some trace amounts of asbestos in its matrix.

I can’t get anyone up to clean them as every place that offers legit cleaning won’t do anything above the 2 floor. as long as I keep cheese cloth over my vents we have less symptoms.

but I can’t do that forever. over tax the system.

and it’s a bandage on a bullet wound.

what I’m looking for is advice on how to scrub that bottom layer myself? I’m in northern Va. and have called ever place. The only places that will come out the ones that do a shit job. I got one to and boy did they suck. The removed 0 dust. ducts look exactly the same. they didn’t block off my vents and their “vacuum” was a horse haphazardly shoved into the vent with nothing dealing it in.

their “cleaning device“ was put a small rubber hose that flopped around and called it “agitation”.

I assume the previous owner never cleaned it since they would have run into the same issue with service and they where as well lazy as I find there handy work around and it’s something else.

Any advice or help would be appreciated as my wife and I are getting to the end of our rope and considering just walking away and selling the place.

can I just turn the system off and use a long poll and scrub brush with hot soapy water? As if I spray it with a wet floaty the paper towels come out filthy. I’m not sure if that will be bad for the metal in the long term? I just mold fogger my vents but the dust is still there and needs to come out