Failing Ducts in Your Home Can Cost a Lot of Money

vent cover over ductwork

The ductwork that plays a vital role in your forced-air heating and cooling system doesn’t last forever. Yet, most homeowners take it for granted to such a degree that when it finally does fail, they act surprised. In many older homes, the ductwork that’s delivering conditioned air now is the same system of ducts that was installed when the home was built. When it eventually fails, this can be an expensive fix. Yet, the failure generally happens gradually, with air leakage occurring bit by bit and getting worse and worse over time.

Air leakage is the most common consequence of deteriorating ductwork. This means that conditioned air that’s intended to heat or cool the rooms in your house is escaping via leaks in deteriorating and/or separated duct sections. Yet, your thermostat will continue to call on the HVAC equipment to meet your designated temperature. When air is escaping into unconditioned areas such as crawlspaces and wall voids, the cooling or heating system must work all the harder to replace that lost air.

Old, failing ductwork also can have an adverse effect on indoor air quality. This can happen when as a result of air pressure differentials, dirty air from unconditioned areas is sucked into leaky ducts and mixes with conditioned air before being delivered throughout the home. In extreme cases, even toxic carbon monoxide can “back-draft” into the home in this manner.

How Can You Tell the Ductwork Is Failing?

One way is knowing the age of the ductwork. When you purchased your house, some paperwork might have been included providing that information. If such records are not available (and they probably won’t be), an experienced HVAC expert can inspect the old ducts and tell you whether they came with the house. If you determine that the ductwork in your home is older than 20 years, you should seriously consider scheduling a comprehensive inspection by a trained professional, who may very well recommend replacement of the duct system.

Otherwise, you can perform your own inspection of visible ductwork. Problems such as separated or loose sections, duct tape that’s hanging, or signs of corrosion or rust are obvious red flags. If you can see those issues on visible ducts, there’s a very good chance that hidden ductwork – the sections you can’t see – is plagued by the same problems.

Another possible tip-off to failing ducts is unusually high heating and cooling bills. If a substantial amount of air is being lost due to duct leaks, the energy that your furnace, AC or heat pump consumes in order to make up for that lost air will be reflected in higher electric and/or gas bills.

If airflow doesn’t seem consistent from room to room, this also could suggest issues with the ductwork serving the room(s) that don’t appear to be getting the right amount of air. A detached duct section, for example, could be allowing conditioned to rush out in areas where it’s not wanted or needed.

Here’s Your Best Option

Once you’re fairly certain that your home has defective ductwork, as mentioned before, you’ll want to schedule a careful professional inspection of the ducts, by a Cincinnati HVAC contractor with a stellar record of service and integrity. Take care you don’t hire an outfit that’s likely to recommend duct replacement no matter what the inspection finds. Yes, unfortunately, every industry has its bad apples.

A trusted and certified duct specialist will perform diagnostic tests on your ductwork to determine the integrity of the air-distribution system, and if they confirm that your ducts need to be repaired or replaced, they will recommend a course of action to correct the situation. They may very well find that your ductwork is fine, or that it just needs a good cleaning, in which case they’ll likely offer to do that work.

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