To Air is Human… this Quack is trying to Seal my Duct!

Rich (my neighbour at Lillooet Lake) is laughing now, but if this duct isn’t air tight “somebody’s gonna get a hurtin.” Duct seal isn’t pretty to look at so you may as well do it with your eyes closed… apparently!

Air leakage on ductwork is no laughing matter. After a great design and a quality installation it would be nice if the air actually got delivered to its destination. There has been little improvement in sheet metal fabrication in the last 100 years. Air leakage is particularly noticeable on the gores (seams) on elbows, seams on pipe and the joints. At our company, where we always “duct seal” every job and then we “duct blast” (fan pressurization) our installed sheet metal work and it is surprising to still find air leakage, especially when our guys understand the issues and work very hard to avoid leakage. Our goal at Solace Homeworks is 95% air delivery which is difficult to achieve, however we consistently do it and what it accomplishes is dramatic. I will get into the many benefits of  forced air systems for air tight homes in a later topic.