High utility bills? Stuffy rooms? Dusty house?

IT COULD BE YOUR DUCTS!

A duct system that is well-designed and properly sealed can make your home more comfortable, more energy efficient, and safer. Here are some reasons why duct improvements are a wise investment:

Comfort

Sealing and insulating ducts can help with common comfort problems, such as rooms that are too hot in the summer or too cold in the winter.

Health

Sealing ducts can help improve indoor air quality by reducing the risks of pollutants entering ducts and circulating through your home. Fumes from household and garden chemicals, insulation particles, and dust can enter your duct system through leaks and can aggravate existing asthma and allergy problems.

Safety

During normal operation, gas appliances such as water heaters, clothes dryers, and furnaces release combustion gases, like carbon monoxide, through their ventilation systems. Leaking ductwork in your heating and cooling system may cause “backdrafting,” where these gases are drawn into the living space, rather than expelled to the outdoors. Sealing leaks can minimize this risk.

Save Money

Leaky ducts can reduce heating and cooling system efficiency by as much as 20 percent. Duct sealing and insulating increases efficiency, lowers your energy bills, and can often pay for itself in energy savings. Plus, if you’re planning to install new heating and cooling equipment, know that a well designed and sealed duct system may allow you to downsize to a smaller, less costly heating and cooling system.

Protect the Environment

Energy generation is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gases. By sealing your ducts and reducing the amount of energy necessary to comfortably heat or cool your home, you can reduce the amount of air pollution generated.

How Ducts Work

Ducts are an integral part of a forced-air system, such as a furnace, heat pump, or central air conditioner. The job of ducts is to circulate heated or cooled air evenly to every room in a house. Ducts are commonly concealed in walls, ceilings, attics, basements, or crawl spaces. This can make them difficult to access and repair.

Poorly performing ducts often leak the air that you paid to heat and cool. Poorly performing ducts can cause your heating and cooling system to work harder to keep your home at a comfortable temperature.
 

These conditions can be a sign of poorly performing ducts.

  • High summer and winter utility bills.

  • System filters get dirty quickly.








     

  • Dirt streaks showing at the corners and connections of ducts.

  • Rooms are stuffy and never seem to feel comfortable.

  • Your ducts are located in the attic or crawl space and they are not insulated or have damaged insulation.

  • Flexible ducts are tangled or kinked.

  • The spaces between the floor joists and wall studs have been enclosed and are being used to move air. When these cavities are used as ductwork, they are usually very leaky. You can detect this in the basement if sheet metal is nailed to the ceiling between the floor joists. A well-designed, sealed, and insulated duct system will improve your system’s ability to consistently cool and heat every room in your home.

LEAKS AT FURNACE & FILTER SLOT
AND DUCT TAPE FAILURE

Common Duct Problems
There are several things that could be wrong with your duct system that prevent it from evenly heating and cooling your home.

Poor Design – A well designed duct system minimizes the length of ducts and number of bends, is sized correctly and places ducts within conditioned spaces. A poorly designed duct system means your furnace or air conditioner has to work harder and use more energy to get air to every room to keep you comfortable. If the duct system installed in your house was poorly designed or your house has changed from the original design your duct system may need to be modified to correct the problem.

Poor Duct Installation – Sometimes the duct system is designed well, but it is not installed well. Most duct systems leak air because the installer did not seal the leaks. The more air that leaks out the more energy it takes to heat and cool your home. Another common problem is ducts in an attic or crawl space that are not insulated. Overtime, duct insulation may fall off if not properly installed. Flexible ducts come with insulation and make the installation easier, but kinks in the duct will restrict air flow, and if connections are not sealed air leaks out.

Unbalanced Ducts – An unbalanced duct system doesn't sound good and its not. Most duct systems have never been balanced and others have been improperly adjusted. The result is that the right amount of air is not going to each room and it takes more energy to keep you comfortable. A heating and cooling contractor can modify or adjust your ducts to evenly heat and cool every room in your home.

Not Enough Air Returns – A common design in many homes is a centrally located air return. Unfortunately, closing doors to rooms can cut off the supply of air to the return and create a pressure imbalance. A better design is to install a return duct in every room that has a supply duct.

Many of these problems can cause pressure differences between rooms or the inside and outside of your house that cause air leakage from the outside that your feel as cold drafts in the winter. A heating and cooling contractor that specializes in duct repairs can recommend solutions to solve many of these common duct problems. The contractor will use special diagnostic equipment to determine duct pressures; air flow and leakage that help determine the efficiency of your duct system and prescribe improvements.
 

Who can fix my ducts?
There are some repairs you may be able to do yourself or you can hire "Atlas Star Energy", a contractor that specializes in duct repair. We use special diagnostic equipment to check duct pressures, air flow and leakage to assess the efficiency of your duct system and prescribe improvements. Schedule your free energy audit today! We have representatives here waiting to help you.