In most contemporary homes, approximately 20 percent of the conditioned air flowing through ductwork is lost through holes, leaks and poor duct connections. Inefficient air delivery in your Fresno-area home can lead to uncomfortable indoor temperatures and higher energy bills. Ensure your home has tight ducts for increased comfort at home and in your wallet.
Why Tight Ducts Are Important
Comfort: Tight duckwork helps to deliver hot or cold air to the extremities and lesser-used rooms of your home, increasing the overall comfort for you and your family.
Air Quality: Every hole or gap in your ductwork is another opportunity for dust, chemicals and insulation particles to enter your air delivery system. Having tight ducts prevents unwanted pollutants from entering your home for better indoor air quality.
Safety: Gas-fueled appliances, such as furnaces and water heaters, release gases, such as carbon monoxide, produced from active operation through their respective venting systems. Unsealed ductwork can allow these gases to “backdraft” into the home rather than being exhausted safely outdoors.
Save Money: Properly sealed and insulated ducts increase the efficiency of your ductwork, lowering energy bills. Tight ducts can actually allow homeowners, in some cases, to downsize to a smaller HVAC system, further reducing energy bills.
Environmental Protection: Using less energy in your home greatly reduces the amount of fossil fuels burned in your house or at the power plants that provide electricity to your community.
How to Make Tight Ducts Tighter
Repairing or sealing ducts that run through ceilings and walls can be difficult but there are some things you can do to improve the performance of the ductwork in your home.
Seal air leaks with metal tape or mastic sealant, insulating exposed ductwork that can be accessed throughout your home as you go. Standard duct tape may seem like a viable option for sealing but it isn’t an ideal long-term solution, as the adhesive wears out over time. Ensure that duct vents and registers are properly sealed where they meet floors, ceilings and walls.
If you aren’t a do-it-yourselfer, please contact Donald P. Dick Air Conditioning for professional ductwork services in the Fresno area.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in the greater Fresno, California area about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about tight ducts and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
Image courtesy of Shutterstock