Can Bad Ductwork Design Lower My Home’s Air Quality?

Here’s something you probably don’t want to hear, but it’s likely the truth: your home has bad ductwork. You may not know it because you simply can’t see most of the ducts. They stay hidden behind the walls and up in the attic. But so much initial ductwork design today is just simply shoddy. We’re ductwork professionals who take immense pride in providing excellent ductwork design and air duct repairs in Chandler, AZ and throughout the Phoenix area, so we’ve run into more than our fair share of homes with ducts that need tons of work.

­“Okay,” you’re thinking, “but how bad can this really be? What are the horrible consequences of having less-than-satisfactory ducts?”

The answer is—plenty! One of the biggest negative consequences is how much bad ductwork wastes power. However, we’ll talk about that more in another post, because right now we want to look at the serious problems that bad, leaky ductwork has on your indoor air quality.

Poor indoor air quality is a big deal. Too many homes suffer from it, and it gets worse when a home is closed up for much of the year because of weather conditions outside. Here in Phoenix, AZ we have homes that require tight insulation against the roasting outdoor heat. The pollutants inside homes can build up to heavy concentrations—and the ductwork is probably not helping!

The ducts can be pulling in worse contaminants

If you have return ducts with leaks—something that happens so often that we’re always busy with air duct repair jobs to handle duct sealing—those leaks can draw in some rotten materials from spots such as crawls spaces and in-between walls. And then it ends up getting blown into the air that you breathe.

Unbalanced pressure can mean bad air entering your home

Leaky supply ducts (the ducts that deliver air from the HVAC system) can create problems as well. If these ducts are losing air because of leaks, it will create negative pressure inside the house. (More units of air going into the return vents than are entering through the supply vents.) Air from outside the living space will need to make up the difference, and it can get drawn from spots like the crawl space, the attic, or the garage… and that’s not the air you want to be breathing!

Backdrafts with combustion appliances

If you use natural gas appliances in your house, such as a furnace or water heater, bad ducts can cause backdrafts: i.e. if exhaust gases can’t escape up a flue, they’ll enter into the house. Bad ducts can create the negative pressure that will cause this to happen.

If you don’t know the condition of your ducts, we strongly recommend calling our duct design professionals. They handle air duct repair, air duct replacement, as well as air duct cleaning in Phoenix, AZ.

Would you like to find out more about how to improve your home’s ductwork? Contact Magic Touch Mechanical today, and simply tell one of our friendly customer service representatives that you read about our ductwork services on our blog. We can take it from there!