How CleanRun Air Duct Cleaning Northbrook Was Born in Northbrook
We opened this branch in 2013 because of a phone call that still bothers us. A homeowner in Northbrook had paid another company to clean her ducts, and she called us because her allergies were worse, not better. We brought our camera scope and found what the first crew had left behind: compacted dust bunnies the size of a fist, a register that had never been removed, and a filter so clogged it was bending the return frame. She had paid for a service and received a performance. That afternoon we decided Northbrook needed what the CleanRun brand already stood for: a written price before we start, and a photograph of every run when we finish.
The industry in 2013 was flooded with $79 coupons that bought you a shop vac at one register and a hard sell for services you did not need. We watched neighbors in Northbrook, Glenview, and Deerfield get quoted one price on the phone and a different one at the door. CleanRun had already built the system to stop that - flat pricing, photographed evidence, no surprises. Our job was to bring it here and run it like the local business it is.
Tomas Reyes’s Personal Connection to the Air Duct Cleaning Trade
Tomas Reyes did not stumble into this work. He was drawn to it by the problem nobody else wanted to solve completely.
Before 2013, Tomas spent years in the building trades around the North Shore, doing HVAC service calls where the real issue was never the furnace or the coil - it was what had accumulated inside the ducts feeding them. He would open a return boot and smell the musty, paper-dust odor of a system that had been “cleaned” six months prior. He would run his hand along a main trunk and come away with gray film on his fingers. Other technicians shrugged. The customer had paid for duct cleaning; the customer had received duct cleaning. The fact that the two had nothing to do with each other was treated as normal.
Tomas could not treat it as normal. He started carrying a borescope camera on every call, showing homeowners what their ducts actually looked like after other companies had been there. The reactions were always the same: confusion, then anger, then a question - “Can you fix it for real?” He could. He did. And somewhere around the hundredth time he pulled a camera out of a register and heard that sharp intake of breath, he understood that this was the work he wanted to do exclusively. Not because it was lucrative, but because it was verifiable. You cannot fake a photograph of the inside of a duct.
If Tomas were not doing this, he would probably still be in the trades somewhere, still carrying a camera, still showing people what is actually going on inside their walls. The work means something personal to him because it is one of the few home services where the customer can see the exact value they received. There is no mystery, no trust-me language, no “it feels different now.” There is a before photo, an after photo, and the space between them that he and his crew created.
What gets him out of bed is the same thing that kept him up late in the early years: the knowledge that most people have no idea what is in their ducts, and that someone honest needs to show them.
Meet Tomas Reyes - The Person Behind Every Job
Tomas Reyes is the Owner and Founder of CleanRun Air Duct Cleaning Northbrook. He holds the state license required for HVAC and duct cleaning work in Illinois, carries full insurance and bonding, and has spent over a decade in the field personally - not managing from an office, but running equipment, reading airflow, and training crews on the specifics of Northbrook’s housing stock.
What separates Tomas from a corporate franchise technician is simple: his name is on the door, and he answers for every job. He still reviews the before-and-after photos from every house his crew visits, and he still calls customers back when they have questions about what they are looking at. He is the person who decided this branch would use Aprilaire media filters as our standard upgrade, not because of a supplier deal, but because he watched them outperform cheaper alternatives in Highland Park homes with heavy pollen loads.
On weekends you will find him on the bike paths around the Skokie Lagoons, usually early, usually with coffee that has gone cold because he stopped to talk to someone about their house. His commitment to you is direct: every job gets his attention, and every customer gets his number.
Before
AfterOur Promise to Northbrook Homeowners
We operate under The Haven Standard, and we cite it by clause because each one was written for a reason.
Clause 1: Have it in writing. Every Northbrook job starts with a flat price for the whole system, not per vent, not per return. The scope is written, the warranty is written, and both are agreed to before anyone touches a tool. We learned this from watching too many homeowners sign blank work orders that became invoices they did not recognize.
Clause 4: Evidence on every job. We photograph the inside of every run before we start and after we finish. Not a representative sample - every single one. In 2013 this was unusual. Today it is still unusual, and we still do it. A homeowner in Deerfield once told us our after photos were the first proof she had ever received that a service was actually performed in her home.
Clause 5: No surprises. No door upsell, no “while we are in here” expansion of scope, no discovery of a problem that mysteriously requires immediate attention. If we find something unexpected, we document it, explain it, and let you decide on your own timeline.
Our Credentials
- State-licensed for HVAC and air duct cleaning work in Illinois
- Insured & bonded for residential work in your home
- Years of local experience serving Northbrook, Deerfield, Glenview, Highland Park, and surrounding communities
- Strong local reputation built on documented results and customer referrals
These credentials matter because air duct cleaning requires access to your home, your mechanical systems, and your trust. A state license means the person leading your job has met Illinois requirements for technical competence. Insurance and bonding mean you are protected if something goes wrong. Local experience means we know the difference between a 1960s ranch in Mount Prospect with original ductwork and a 2005 build in Schaumburg with flex runs that require gentler handling. And reputation means we have neighbors who will tell you what it is like to have us in their house.
Rooted in Northbrook
This branch lives where it works. Our service area covers the towns we actually drive through on the way to the grocery store - Northbrook, Deerfield, Glenview, Highland Park, and the communities west toward Schaumburg and Hoffman Estates. We know which Northbrook neighborhoods built up before central air was standard, where the retrofit ductwork runs through finished basements, and which Glenview subdivisions have the pollen load that makes Aprilaire filters worth the upgrade. We are not pretending to be local. We are local. The CleanRun brand gives us the systems and the standards; we give it the boots on the ground and the name you can look up.
Written by Tomas Reyes, Owner at CleanRun Air Duct Cleaning Northbrook, serving Northbrook and surrounding communities since 2013.