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Health & Fitness

Is Your HVAC Running in Place?

Paying to much for energy bills? Thinking about super-sizing your HVAC? Your HVAC might not be working at top efficiency.

“Your legs are pumping, your feet are pounding the pavement, you're huffing and puffing, but it doesn't feel like you're going anywhere. That's what it's like for your HVAC system if you have leaky ducts.”

That is the analogy used by Gayle Rusk, a certified Dr. Energy Saver energy conservation expert, used to describe energy losses caused by improperly maintained, dirty and unsealed air ducts.

As owner of Dr. Energy Saver Cleveland, Gayle and her husband Mike have performed home energy audits, and provided energy-efficient retrofitting services to many homes in the Cleveland area, and have first-hand experience with the problem of leaky ducts.

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“Let's take a closer look:” – she adds. “Your system turns on to keep your home comfortable, and the fan kicks on to start circulating air. As soon as the fan gets up to speed, your leaky return ducts start to suck in air from your hot attic or cold basement or crawlspace.

Instead of dealing with air returning from your house at indoor temperatures, your system encounters unconditioned air that's much hotter or colder. Your furnace or air conditioner has to work extra hard to make this air the right temperature.”

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If that isn’t bad enough, according to Gayle “that's only the half of it. Now you've got air that's not quite "cold enough"  or "warm enough" traveling down your supply duct system, and your leaky supply ducts let some of this air -- which you've already overpaid to heat or cool -- leak out instead of delivering it to your home.”

Things get even more complicated if these air ducts run through unconditioned spaces like a vented attic, or a vented crawl space. All that conditioned air that you’ve paid to cool and heat is running through metal ducts housed in extremely hostile environments.

During the summer, for example, the heat from the sun on the roof can make the attic reach scorching temperatures of up to 150 degrees Fahrenheit. The cool air produced by the air conditioner is re-heated in the attic, before it makes into the rooms that need to be cooled! During the winter, the process is inversed; the heated air loses temperature as it runs through ducts in freezing cold attics and crawl spaces.

Leaky, dirty and improperly maintained ducts make your HVAC run longer, and cause significant energy losses of up to 50%. That means half of the money spent in heating and cooling your home is literally being wasted through these ducts!

Considering that in the average U.S. home, 40% of the total energy consumption goes towards heating and cooling, can you imagine how much money you could be saving just by getting your ducts sealed, cleaned and insulated?

“We often encounter customers thinking that they need a bigger, more potent HVAC system to make their homes comfortable” – explains Gayle – “and after we are done air sealing and insulating the ducts and other areas of their homes, they are surprised to see that their current system, now working at top efficiency, isn’t only sufficient, but oversized even! On occasion, customers actually had to install a smaller HVAC unit!” 

"Bad air" leaking into your living space through leaky ducts can also affect your health. Pollutants and allergens carried into your home cause your allergies to flare up, making your house dirtier and dustier.

If you have a home that is hard to cool and heat, with unbalanced room-to-room temperatures, or if you are looking to save money on your energy bills, consider calling an energy conservation specialist, before you start shopping for an HVAC upgrade. When it comes to home comfort and energy efficiency, bigger isn’t always better. 

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