As you’re probably aware, ductwork is the (usually) hidden pathway within your walls and crawl spaces used by your home comfort system to route conditioned (cooled or heated) air throughout your home. It’s a bit like your body’s respiratory system, serving as the lungs of your house. It’s also like your circulatory system, with ducts acting as veins, delivering blood/air pumped from the heart (of your home comfort system) through the body and returning it back again for recirculation.
Here’s what’s going on inside your walls:
Your duct system has two major air-transfer networks. The supply side sends air from your central furnace or A/C to each room via a branching arrangement of tubes or pipes, round or rectangular, made from sheet metal, fiberglass or a flexible non-metallic material. Air enters rooms through individual registers or vents in the walls or floor. The return side (id
eally) pulls a consistent, balanced volume of air from the rooms, through return ducts, to the air handler. Heat energy/moisture is removed/added by your heating and cooling equipment, air is filtered or purified and sent back to the rooms through the supply ducts.
If the duct work in your Twin Cities-area home is badly designed, leaky or inadequate, you’ll notice:
- Rooms that never get warm or cool enough for comfort. A zoning system may help.
- High utility bills. Consider duct sealing to minimize energy waste.
- Shortened system life as your equipment is stressed; increased demand caused by leaks.
- Fire or carbon monoxide poisoning dangers. Unseen leakage can cause dangerous back-drafting where gases from your combustion appliances (your stove, for example) are pulled into your home’s air supply. Have ducts regularly inspected during preventive maintenance visits from your HVAC contractor. Use properly installed CO, smoke and radon detectors in your home.
- Health problems may crop up due to poor indoor air quality as pollen, dust, mold spores, chemical residue and more accumulate inside the ducts over time. Duct cleaning or an air purification upgrade may be recommended to remove contaminants.
Questions about your duct system? Contact the experts at Marsh Heating & Air Conditioning online – or just call us!
Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about duct systems and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
Marsh Heating and Air Conditioning services Minnesota’s Twin Cities. Visit our website to schedule a free air check today!