The ducts in your home are perhaps the most vital components in delivering warm or cool air to your living space when you switch on your home HVAC system. When you turn on the heating or air conditioning system in your home, the air that comes out through the vents must first go through a set of ducts which provide a pathway both towards and away from the indoor air handler.
The air handler is the portion of your heating or AC system that contains all of the vital indoor components involved in conditioning your home, including cooling coils, heating elements, and a blower fan. The blower fan sucks in air through the return grille where it usually first passes through a filter to eliminate particles that could damage the air handler or contaminate the air. It then moves through the ducts and is conditioned at the air handler, where it goes back through the ducts that lead to the supply vents in the home.
A single leak or any fault in duct construction can reduce the amount of heating or cooling you feel in your home. It can also cause your unit to become inefficient, taking far longer to increase or decrease the home’s temperature than it should. That’s why designing an HVAC system for new construction is a job for professionals who will take into account the following factors.
- Materials: There are actually many different types of materials to choose between in duct design. Most ductwork professionals prefer sheet metal ducts to flexible materials, but this will depend on the conditions in your home.
- Sizing: Ductwork must be sized according to the size of the home and the heating or cooling capacity of your system. This requires some careful engineering calculations, and ducts that are oversized or undersized may run into a number of problems over time, including poor efficiency.
- Construction: An expert will take the time to decide on the most efficient layout, usually including few twists and turns to provide the most direct route.
- Location: The location of the ducts can have quite an impact on the efficiency of your system. If ducts are located in an unconditioned area, heat may transfer into or out of the ducts unnecessarily.
- Sealing: A professional knows that standard duct tape is not the proper sealant and comes prepared with professional-grade materials and tools.
At Climate Masters, our technicians have experience working with ducts of all sizes, and we’re the place to call for ductwork design in new construction in St. Augustine.
