Significant energy is lost through duct leaks in the average Indianapolis home. Duct sealing helps local homeowners combat this costly energy loss and improve the efficiency of their duct systems. The benefits of sealing ducts go beyond energy conservation, helping your home in ways you likely don’t even realize!
Williams Comfort Air’s NATE-certified heating and cooling experts want to share with you this important home improvement measure that enhances indoor comfort and assists your HVAC systems. The benefits of sealing ducts make this service a valuable investment – to learn more about the benefits of sealing ducts and our duct sealing services, please contact us today!
When you use your furnace or air conditioner to produce heating and cooling, you expect all the warmed or cooled air to be delivered into your living areas. These forced air systems use a duct system to route the conditioned air into rooms throughout your home.
However, air leaks are a significant issue in most duct systems, which prevent all the conditioned air produced by the HVAC system from reaching your living spaces. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the average home loses around 20 to 30% of its conditioned air through duct leaks. A portion of the conditioned air escapes the duct system while the remainder makes its way to your living room, kitchen, bedrooms, and other areas of the home.
Duct leaks can happen anywhere in your home’s duct system. Both the supply side (the ducts that send heated and cooled air into the living areas) and the return side (the ducts that bring air back to the HVAC system) are vulnerable to air loss. Air leaks commonly occur due to:
This air loss causes notable problems for your household, including:
Thankfully, it is often possible to seal air leaks in ductwork to eliminate air loss and the infiltration of unconditioned, contaminated air. The benefits of sealing ducts address the problems that arise due to air leaks to help homeowners improve efficiency and comfort in the home.
Air leaks allow your heated or cooled air to escape your duct system before it reaches the home’s living spaces. On average, 20 to 30% of your heating and cooling utility costs are wasted via duct leaks. That’s 20 to 30% of your heating or cooling bill basically thrown away because you don’t benefit from the energy consumed.
Because heating and cooling is lost, your HVAC systems must work harder and expend more energy to replace it. Not only are air leaks allowing energy to be wasted through loss, there is energy waste due to the additional energy consumed by HVAC equipment in order to make up for the heating or cooling loss and keep living areas at a comfortable temperature.
Energy conservation and lower utility bills are two key benefits of sealing ducts. By eliminating these issues, the energy consumed by your HVAC system goes toward its intended purpose – heating or cooling your home. Plus, the extra energy consumption that must be used to make up for lost temperatures is eliminated, helping homeowners save even more on their energy bills.
Air leaks don’t only let air out, they let air into the duct system. As ducts commonly run through unconditioned areas of the home, the temperature of the infiltrating air affects the temperature of the conditioned air travelling through your ducts. The HVAC system has to work harder to make up for this and produce more warmed or cooled air to keep your living areas at the proper temperature.
The combination of air loss and the infiltration of unconditioned air make it difficult to effectively control and maintain temperatures throughout the home. As conditioned air is lost, rooms don’t receive enough heating or cooling to reach the desired comfortable temperatures, which leads occupants to turn up or down the thermostat. The HVAC system then must do extra work to make up for the lost energy in order to produce the amount of heating or cooling required to keep you comfortable.
Better comfort control is one of the most important benefits of sealing ducts for homeowners and their families. When air leaks are eliminated, you know the temperatures you call for via your thermostat are what you receive in your living areas when your HVAC system cycles. You don’t have to keep turning the thermostat up or down just to get to the right temperature!
With infiltrating air through duct leaks comes contaminants from the areas where your ducts run. Dust, dirt, allergens, and other particles come into the duct system and flow into your living areas, diminishing the home’s indoor air quality. These contaminants also build up inside your duct system, which require duct cleaning to remove.
In homes with allergy and asthma sufferers, the benefits of sealing ducts help reduce symptoms and improve health. The indoor air supply is kept cleaner, as sealing off air leaks in the duct system prevents contaminants from entering the supply from areas where surrounding air is typically of poor quality. Additional benefits of sealing ducts include reduced cleaning needs because your indoor spaces stay cleaner. There is less dust and dirt blown into them, which eventually settles on your surfaces and must be cleaned. The interiors of your ducts stay cleaner, too, which reduces how often duct cleaning is needed.
The loss of temperature and the impacts of unconditioned air infiltrating through duct leaks force the home’s HVAC equipment to overwork in order to make up for these effects. These extra heating or cooling cycles would not be necessary if the ducts retained energy and prevented infiltration.
The benefits of sealing ducts help homeowners improve the efficiency of their heating and cooling equipment. As the HVAC system cycles more frequently to make up for temperature loss, this is energy that would not be consumed otherwise. When duct leaks are sealed, you get what you expect from your home’s heating and cooling system. It operates more efficiently because it isn’t forced to make up for lost energy.
Duct leaks can be damaging to a home’s heating and cooling equipment. Because the system must make up for heating and cooling loss, it runs more cycles, operating more frequently than it would if duct leaks weren’t present. This extra work leads to more wear and tear, breakdowns, and the need to replace the system early.
The benefits of sealing ducts have the potential to save homeowners quite a lot in HVAC equipment costs. By cutting down operation time, the system experiences less wear and tear. Less wear and tear typically help reduce system breakdowns. It also keeps the system in top shape longer, helping homeowners get more years out of their heating and cooling equipment and avoid the expense of replacing a system before reaching its expected service life.
Williams Comfort Air delivers the benefits of sealing ducts to Indianapolis area homeowners through the Aeroseal process. This process seals duct leaks from the inside, eliminating the difficulty and added labor that comes with repairing ductwork in difficult-to-access areas of the home.
Before duct sealing service is performed, our NATE-certified HVAC technicians perform a pre-test to determine if this is the right solution for your home. One of the key benefits of sealing ducts with Williams Comfort Air is the pre-test! Gain peace of mind that duct sealing is needed, so you’re not spending money that could be of greater benefit used for other projects.
The duct system is sealed off at vents and registers, then pressurized as we monitor for air losses throughout the ductwork. We then inform you of our findings and if duct sealing is recommended to eliminate the losses.
To seal air leaks in ducts, Aeroseal sealant is introduced to the pressurized duct system. Suspended sealant particles travel through the duct system and affix to the breach as air pushes its way out through a leak. The sealant closes the duct leak which allows the duct system to retain heated and cooled air as it travels through to your home’s living areas.
Benefits of sealing ducts with the Aeroseal process include reduced disruption to your home. This non-invasive process is completed quickly, producing fast results compared to other duct sealing methods. Aeroseal sealant is non-toxic and safe for use in your home.
Harness the benefits of sealing ducts in your Central Indiana home for improved HVAC efficiency, lower energy bills, better indoor air quality, and more comfortable living areas! Williams Comfort Air offers duct sealing service that reduces air loss up to 90%. Contact us today to schedule a free estimate for duct sealing.