Does Duct Sealing Affect My Furnace?
Ductwork systems in a home serve the purpose of distributing airflow directly from your HVAC system to the rest of your home. Over time, leaks and gaps can be discovered in your ductwork that allows air to escape before reaching its final destination in your home. This is where duct sealing comes into play to eliminate this problem and saves your HVAC system from working overtime to make up for the loss of air. While there are many benefits that can be achieved from duct sealing, many homeowners wonder if completely sealing air ducts will affect their furnace?
First, let’s explore what duct sealing is and why homeowners choose to get this service in the first place. While modern HVAC systems can significantly improve a home’s energy efficiency, if the ductwork isn’t examined as well, it can also be contributing to the energy efficiency in a home.
What is duct sealing?
Duct sealing is properly closing off the small gaps and connection of your ducts to prevent air from escaping. As air leakage is eliminated, this results in your HVAC system operating in a more efficient manner along with doing a better job at evenly distributing conditioned air throughout your home.
What are the benefits of duct sealing?
There are many benefits associated with getting your ducts properly sealed. As a Michigan homeowner, you enjoy the beautiful summers but when winter comes around, you want your home to be warm and cozy. This is where duct sealing comes in to give you the comfortable temperatures you expect your home to have in the summer and winter months. Below, you can see what these benefits are and how they can improve your home’s overall comfortability.
Increase the comfort of your home
It’s never fun walking from one room that feels comfortable to another room in your house that is freezing or too hot. Air duct sealing can help air evenly flow to each room of your home ensuring that there are comfortable temperatures without one room being significantly different than another. This can greatly improve the overall comfort of your home.
Improve indoor air quality
Leaky air ducts can pick up polluted air and then carry this to the rest of your home. These pollutants can include things such as mold, mildew, pollen, fumes, and more. This can be a serious issue for anyone who is sensitive to air quality and has allergies. Therefore, sealing your ducts will prevent this and help deliver cleaner air, free of pollutants to each room of your home.
Lower energy consumption
As you can imagine, sealing your home’s leaky ducts will result in lower energy consumption because there won’t be air escaping through leaks and cracks that make your HVAC system work harder. In return, lower energy consumption will also make your energy bills lower as well.
Increase Your HVAC’s Lifespan
With proper duct sealing, your HVAC system will not be working overtime to heat or cool rooms to make them comfortable. Duct sealing a properly sized duct system allows for your HVAC system to run more efficiently and will likely lead to your HVAC system needing fewer repairs, thus prolonging its lifespan.
What are the potential negative impacts of duct sealing?
There can be both good and bad impacts on your furnace after getting duct sealing done. However, the effects are determined on a case by case basis. As a homeowner, you should be aware of the potential side effects that can come along with duct sealing.
Sealing the leaky parts of a duct system can increase the static pressure. You can think of static pressure like blood pressure. Too high of static pressure means your furnace and air conditioner fan must work overtime to push the air. Depending on the type of fan and how your ductwork is designed this increase in static pressure can result in less air flowing past your heat exchanger. When duct sealing takes place on poorly designed duct systems, the airflow can be impacted and, in many instances, decreased. This can cause problems as there is a minimum acceptable level that most HVAC systems require in order to efficiently operate. If these levels are below or above what’s expected, this can cause problems and potentially decrease the life of your heating and cooling system. To ensure duct sealing is the right solution for your home, Ecotelligent Homes tests the static pressure of your system and will recommend changes to the duct system to avoid issues with static pressure.
If you have uncomfortable rooms in your home or are unsure if duct sealing is affecting your furnace, contact Ecotelligent Homes today.