You’re probably aware that ductwork is the concealed pathway within your walls and crawl spaces, allowing your home comfort system to distribute conditioned (cooled or heated) air throughout your home. It operates much like your body’s respiratory system, acting as the lungs of your house, and also resembles the circulatory system, with ducts functioning as veins, carrying the air (like blood) pumped from the heart (your home comfort system) throughout the house and back for recirculation.
Here’s a closer look at what’s happening inside your walls:
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Supply Side: The duct system has two major air-transfer networks. The supply side sends air from your central furnace or AC to each room through a branching arrangement of tubes or pipes, which can be round or rectangular. These tubes are constructed from sheet metal, fiberglass, or a flexible non-metallic material. Individual registers or vents in the walls or floor allow the air to enter the rooms.
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Return Side: Ideally, the return side pulls a consistent, balanced volume of air from the rooms through return ducts, directing it to the air handler. There, heat energy/moisture is removed/added by your heating and cooling equipment, and the air is filtered or purified before being sent back to the rooms through the supply ducts.
If the ductwork in your Twin Cities-area home is poorly designed, leaky, or inadequate, you may notice the following issues:
- Rooms that never reach the desired level of warmth or coolness. A zoning system could help address this.
- Higher utility bills due to energy waste caused by duct leaks. Consider duct sealing to minimize this.
- Shortened system life as your HVAC equipment is overworked, leading to increased demand caused by leaks.
- Potential dangers of fire or carbon monoxide poisoning due to unseen leakage, which can cause dangerous back-drafting of gases from your combustion appliances. Regularly inspect the ducts during preventive maintenance visits from your Richfield heating and cooling contractor and ensure properly installed CO, smoke, and radon detectors in your home.
- Health problems arising from poor indoor air quality as allergens, dust, mold spores, and chemical residues accumulate inside the ducts over time. Duct cleaning or an air purification upgrade may be recommended to remove contaminants.
If you have questions about your duct system, don’t hesitate to contact the experts at Marsh Heating & Air Conditioning online or give us a call!
Our goal is to educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues, particularly concerning Bloomington heating and air conditioning systems.