Wet Ductwork

This star spotlight features Derek Cole of One hour heating and air conditioning. Today, Derek explains why it's so important to properly seal your new ductwork. Derek, welcome back. Why is it so important for us to seal new ductwork? I mean, it's new ductwork. And are there regulations or specifications that are unique to North Carolina?

Anytime in this state, you install a new duct system, you have to do. And Caroline knows this because she's now doing permits and do what's called a duct test or duct blaster, as we call it. You have to measure how much leakage is in that new duct system. And there is a point, depending on the city of the municipality as to what they want to see. 5, 10% of leakage that they want. So let's go with the round number. I see it's 10% leakage. So you're leaking 10% of the energy you're paying for out of that new duct system. So if you seal it, you can get down to zero, right? So if you get to zero, that's obviously more efficient than losing 10, right? So. So that is why you want to seal the new duct system. Now, in this area, we see a lot of duct board, fiberglass duct system. Again, that is bad for your lungs, better for your health. So we go back and we install metal duct. That way you're not breathing in the fiberglass any longer. The downside to installing that metal duct is that you have joints. And no matter how much you try to seal it manually on the way there, you seal it, seal the joints on the outside with mastic, you seal it up with tape, you seal it up with insulation. You seal that up on top of the mastic and tape still your at 10% leakage because there is no way a human being can actually seal all the places that air flows. Now, with duct sealing, with air seal, it works on pressure. There is not. It's an aerosol. There's not a human being, you know, putting mastic and painting it on the little joints. No, it's a machine. It's all controlled by this aerosol, aerosol spray. It's working on pressure and it's filling the holes as it finds the leaks.

Let the qualified staff at One hour heating and air conditioning help you heat and cool your home more efficiently. Call today at 910-534-4462 or visit onehouraircarolinas.com One Hour Heating and Air conditioning. Always on time or you don't pay a dime. This star spotlight features Derek Cole from one hour heating and Air conditioning. Today, Derek talks about the three basic factors that affect how we heat and cool our homes. Sometimes the unit you have installed may not be the problem at all. So, Derek, what are the problems we face when we try to heat and cool our homes?

It could be one of three things. It could be the unit which was checked out. It could be the air distribution, which is the duct system, or the envelope, which is the home. That could be a problem when they do a load analysis on that home. On that system. Duct loss in the attic for heat gain is calculated. Now, that calculation is different than if it was in the crawl space because obviously you have more of a heat load if it's in the attic versus the crawl space. So that should have been factored in sizing the unit, the equipment, the duct system. So that shouldn't be a problem. You can yourself look at the duct system just to randomly look at it, make sure no runs have fallen down. There's no beak, you know, gaping holes where an animal or something got something got tore up there or the pest control guy did something. You know, you can look at all that yourself. And then third, the envelope, the home itself. Make sure you have ins in all spots. Because what we've seen happen too is like in an attic, we'll take an infrared gun and we'll shoot the temperature and it'll be 75, 75, 80, 80, 80, 80, 102. I need some insulation over here. And people want to think that if they're having a cooling problem or heating problem, it's just the unit where it could be the duct system, it could be the house, the envelope, it could be all three having problem, or it could be just one of those three having a challenge. But one of those three being off is going to cause you not to be comfortable.

Let the qualified heating and air conditioning help you heat and cool your home more efficiently. Call today at 910-534-4462 or visit onehouraircarolinas.com One Hour Heating and air conditioning. Always on time, where you don't pay a dime. This star spotlight features Derek Cole of One Hour heating and Air Conditioning. Today, Derek talks about that musty smell that you smell coming from your system sometimes. Derek, what exactly causes that musty smell? And is there anything that you can do about that?

In air conditioning, you have to remove moisture to get humidity out of there. Air conditioning is all about removing heat, right? So you're taking heat out of the air. It's going over a cold coil which has refrigerant in it, and then it's coming back out cooler air than what came in. So the byproduct of that is water. So that's why you have drain lines. That's why you see water dripping outside. So what will happen is when you have that hot air going across that cold coil, you get condensation, and that's going to drip down to the drain pan. Well, if that drain pan is not draining or something is the matter, things will start growing in that drain pan because you have cold water sitting in a damp, dark spot. So the thing that happens is growth, right? If it's not in the air or if it's a bug or it's a virus or whatever it is, it's going to die and it's going to sit at the bottom in that drain pan for a period of time. So you start getting the first time you turn on your heat or conditioning especially, you get that kind of damp, musty, moldy kind of smell. Way to prevent that from happening is to introduce UV into that system somehow. Now we do it here with the coil scrubber, which shines on the indoor coil, has the UV power. So nothing can grow in uv. If you want to prove that point, everybody at home has that mat at the front or back of the house that has the mildew, and it's kind of wet and it's kind of damp. Take that mat, stick it out in the middle of the yard in the sunshine for a period of time, and that will be clean and dry. Because nothing can grow when UV is present. Right? So in the indoor air environment, in the air handler that is not present. So we have to make it present with UV light. UV light will solve that problem. So the same power, the sun, the same energy that holds, we can bring it into your system and that'll stop that damp, musty.

Let the qualified staff at One Hour Heating and Air Conditioning help you heat and cool your home more efficiently. Call today at 910-534-4462 or visit onehouraircarolinas.com One Hour Heating and air Conditioning. Always on time or you don't pay a dime. This star spotlight features Derek Cole of One Hour Heating and Air Conditioning. Today, Derek talks about wet ductwork. Derek, you and I have talked about this before. There's so many things that could cause your ductwork to get wet. And once that happens, what do we do next?

We've been to some duct system recently that have been underwater or have had water in them. I've seen this problem a lot In H vac, especially in this area, is people try to put band aids on the problem and don't try to fix the problem. Right? I mean, I go to the doctor. I want to be healed of the sickness. I want to cure. I don't want the band aid. So we need to figure out why the water is getting in the duct to start with. It's probably because the crawl space is getting moisture coming from the ground and it's getting wet that way. Once that happens, that needs to be replaced. Once you get insulation wet, there is no drying. I mean, you can try to dry it, but it's not going to be completely the way it was. So you need to go back with a new duct system, a sealed duct system. And you need to handle the problem of actually the ductwork getting wet. Seal the crawl space, and then you need to replace that piece that is wet, because wet insulation, first of all, stinks. And second of all, you don't know what is in the insulation. You can't completely dry it out and pretend like nothing ever happened. So I would solve the problem of getting the ductwork wet and then replace that piece. And then, yes, I would seal it as well. But there is no cleaning. There is no drying out. Once you get two feet of water into the piece of duct. I mean, let's talk about why that's happening versus, you know, my ducks rotted out. Can we just clean it? We could do that and charge you for it. But let's fix the problem so we don't have this situation again.

Let the qualified staff at One Hour Heating and air conditioning help you heat and cool your home more efficiently. Call today at 910-534-44-4462 or visit onehouraircarolinas.com 1hour heating and Air Conditioning, always on time, where you don't pay a dime.