Category Archives: Duct Sealing

Part of ensuring a comfortable, energy-efficient home includes having an effective ductwork system. Your home’s ductwork is responsible for delivering heated and cooled air throughout your home, helping to ensure comfort and energy savings.

Ductwork design is therefore a critical factor in making comfort and savings possible. When planning a ductwork system for your newly constructed home, or if you’re considering a retrofit, these five ductwork design factors will help ensure a solid delivery system:

• To minimize conduction — the process by which ducts lose energy from the conditioned air inside them to the colder or hotter air outside the ducts — be sure to install most of the ducts within conditioned spaces of your home, or those spaces that are heated and cooled.
• For larger or multiple-story homes, ducts often deliver a higher level of performance when two duct systems are installed. In multi-level homes, for instance, the upper levels incur more heat gain during summer and are generally cooler during winter. Having separate ductwork for upper floors will help produce an ideal temperature and save energy.
• When planning supply-duct runs, be sure to locate supply-air registers alongside the interior walls of your home, which will decrease the length of the duct run and ensure consistent temperatures from the point where your HVAC equipment conditions the air to delivery through the supply registers.
• Supply outlets should not be located close to any exhaust fans in kitchens or bathrooms, as these fans will draw heated or cooled air from the supply outlets before it can reach your home.
• Insist on high-quality air sealing and installation to reduce the risk of air leaks. Additionally, make sure your contractor uses high-efficiency insulation specifically designed for ductwork around any portions of the duct system that must be located in unconditioned areas of your home, such as the basement or attic.

Make your ductwork design a high priority during the planning stage. Doing so will help guarantee a comfortable, energy-efficient home. For assistance, contact Home Comfort Experts. With headquarters in South Bend, we serve homeowners in Northern Indiana and Southwest Michigan.

Insulation and sealing are two effective ways to reduce energy loss in your HVAC system’s ductwork, the mostly out-of-sight network of tubes that delivers heated and cooled air from your HVAC equipment to your living spaces. Particularly when ducts run through unconditioned parts of your home, they can be major sources of energy waste.  (more…)

Now that the cold weather is rolling forward in Northern Indiana and Southwest Michigan, you’ve probably closed your home to keep the cold drafts out and the heated air inside. While a tight home saves on your heating bills and keeps you more comfortable, it can also build the levels of indoor air pollution in your home.

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One of the easiest parts of your home heating and cooling system to ignore is the ductwork. This simple but important part of your system conveys the heated and cooled air from your air-handling unit to the various rooms of your house. Tucked away in walls, attics and basements, it’s a part of the system that few people really think about.

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When it comes to energy efficiency, your ductwork  design is just as important a detail as the type of heating or cooling equipment you have. Ductwork is the superhighway for your airflow. Heated or cooled air may begin flowing from the newest, highest efficiency equipment available today. But, if it is slowed, blocked or dispersed improperly by your ducting, it’s costing you money.

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One of the places the average family can find savings is in their monthly energy bill. Sealing your HVAC ducts throughout your home  is a good place to start.

Many things can happen to cause leaks in your ducts; from parts that just don’t come together quite well to damage caused by moving heavy boxes, especially in the attic and basement areas. Leaks in your ducts can cause as much as 15 percent of the heated and cooled air to escape, which only wastes energy and drives up your utility bill. (more…)

Many people believe creating better heating and air conditioning efficiency for their homes means upgrading to a higher efficiency HVAC system. Depending on the age of your equipment, that option could very well be a winner. But it isn’t the only way to increase efficiency and generate utility bill savings. Your home’s HVAC system works in concert with your duct system, and the simple process of duct sealing could hold the key to major improvement. (more…)

If your ductwork is functioning efficiently, each room in your house should be receiving the same amount of airflow to keep all the rooms at the same temperature. Your duct system should also incorporate some method of return airflow, which helps keep the pressure throughout your home at a neutral level. (more…)

There is nothing more important than the safety of your family.  Unfortunately, in many homes the indoor air is making people sick. There is a reason that so many people today are suffering from allergies or asthma and doctors suspect it could be bad air inside buildings. Environmental Protection Agency studies have shown that indoor air pollution is a bigger problem than outdoor pollution and the American College of Allergy and Asthma says as many as half of all illnesses could be blamed on indoor air. (more…)