Our dog, Kendra, kept whining and digging near the HVAC vent.
That part of the vent cover is broken so I assumed she must have dropped something down into the ductwork.
I use the flashlight to look down into the ductwork but I could not see anything. But then, when our daughter turned on the heater it made a really loud noise and I knew it was time that we call the professionals. Thankfully the HVAC technicians were able to come right out and they did a thorough vent cleaning and they found the issue. It had been Kendra’s chew toy that had been rattling in the ductwork and making such a racket. They also found a bunch of other junk that had fallen into our ductwork while doing the ductwork cleaning. The amount of dirt that they vacuumed out was disgusting. Thankfully there was no damage to the heater or our HVAC system. The technicians were also able to replace our broken vent cover and now or heater works without any abnormal noises. Kendra is happy too because she has her toy back. the HVAC workers were really surprised at how well our HVAC system runs even though we’ve never had it serviced and we’ve been living in this house for nearly a decade. They said it was a good thing that the Kendra dropped her toy down the ductwork because our system would not have gone on much longer without a cleaning. I had no idea this was required to keep an HVAC system working well. From now on we will be sure to have it serviced at least twice a year.