Reasons to Insulate Your Ductwork

This winter, warm air will travel through the ducts of your forced air heating system in order to arrive inside your living areas. However, because of the unheated areas your ducts travel through, there is the potential for significant heat to be lost along this journey. Insulate your ductwork to make heating more efficient this season – Hans Heating & Air shares why.

Understanding Your Ducts

If you have a ducted heating and cooling system, chances are your ducts run mostly through unconditioned areas of the home. These are spaces that do not receive heating and cooling from the HVAC system, like an unfinished attic, basement, or crawlspace. Because these areas of the home are not regularly used by people, the spaces often lack insulation, too. In the winter, these areas get particularly cold, which can impact the metal ducts running through the space as well as the warm air running through the ducts.

What’s more, is duct leaks could also cause your home to lose heated air. If there are gaps in the duct system, the heated air from your furnace or heating system can leak out into these unconditioned areas before arriving in your living spaces. Since these are not areas you regularly heat, this escaped heat is essentially wasted. This causes your heating system to work harder to replace the heating that was lost.

How to Insulate Your Ductwork

Help your ducts efficiently deliver heated air into your living areas when you insulate your ductwork for better performance. Any ducts running through unconditioned areas like attics, crawlspaces, or basements should be sealed and insulated. 

Duct Sealing

Before you insulate your ductwork, duct sealing is necessary to close up holes and gaps that are allowing heat to escape the ducts. While placing new insulation around the ducts can block these holes, insulating ducts can diminish indoor air quality without necessary duct sealing. Fiberglass and other insulating materials can be sucked through holes in ducts, contaminating the air supply moving into your living areas.

Duct sealing can be performed effectively by certified HVAC technicians. Professional duct sealing methods quickly close gaps to end air leaks and improve ductwork energy efficiency. Once duct sealing is performed, you don’t have to worry about air quality issues caused by air infiltration from unconditioned areas where contaminants often exist in higher concentrations.

Duct Insulation

If you want to insulate your ductwork, you can choose between fiberglass duct insulation or specialized duct wrap made to insulate the air ducts. Fiberglass is more affordable while duct wrap products can be pricier to purchase. While fiberglass must be monitored routinely for moisture issues, duct wrap does not pose this problem.

To further help insulate your ductwork, add insulation to the unconditioned areas where your ducts run. This means upping R-values in your attic, as well as installing insulation in the basement or crawlspace. More insulation will help these areas better keep cold air out and hold in heat, which in turn helps the HVAC ducts retain heat.

Insulate Your Ductwork with Help from Hans

Hans Heating & Air helps you boost heating efficiency this season with ductwork insulation. Let our team insulate your ductwork to help the system better retain the heat produced by your furnace or heat pump. Contact us today to learn more or to request an estimate for ductwork services.