Air ducts play a crucial role in our everyday lives. Whether you are at home or in the office, the air you are consuming comes right through the HVAC system, of which air ducts are a major part.
And since you are inhaling the air 24/7, your health conditions depend considerably on the quality of the air these ducts are channeling. Leaks in those ducts can be a significant issue.
Common Signs of Air Duct Leaks Are –
- Higher utility bills all of a sudden. Because leaks in the air ducts will spread the heated or cool air out into unnecessary places, thus increase energy consumption.
- Unwanted dust in all around your home. This may hamper lungs of any allergic or asthmatic resident in-home or office.
- Unbalanced distribution of heated or cool air. Can you feel differences in the temperatures in different rooms? Leaks in the air ducts might have caused it.
Now, are you suspecting that your air ducts might have leaks somewhere? Fret not, because you can check for leaks on your ductwork all by yourself!
Follow this step by step guide until you are satisfied with the result. These methods are known to work out in most of the cases of spotting air duct leakage.
Ways to Spot Leaks in Your Air Ducts
Before performing the checks, keep a grease pencil or marker at hand. There may be multiple leaks. You can use the pencil to mark one after another to apply sealings to all of them once you are finished checking.
Now let’s get to the methods –
Search for Visible Cracks: The first thing to do is run your eyes all over your air ducts’ surfaces. Look at all the nooks and crannies as far as your eyes can reach.
Make sure to have an abundance of light. If you can spot a leak, use grease pencil to mark it so you can come back later.
- Run Your HVAC in Maximum Capacity
Before performing the check, a wise thing would be to turn your HVAC system up to full throttle. There can be less apparent leaks that you might miss out on. Having the most airflow will make it easier for you to detect the cracks.
Ø Recheck The Joints
Pay special attention to the duct joints. The most common places where leaks are found are these joints that connect two ducts.
To be entirely sure, take your arms near these joints. If you feel any flow of air coming out, you have spotted a leak! Do mark it up.
- Are There Duct Tapes?
Duct tape isn’t a permanent solution for the sealing of air ducts. So, if you happen to spot duct tapes on your air duct, someone might have tried to seal a leak there. Your job will be to replace that with mastic or foil-faced tape at the very least.
- Apply Smoke Pencils
Smoke pencils are used to blow out small streams of smoke in about a place. You can torch up a smoke pencil near the duct line area. Any unusual twist in the smoke will indicate that leakage is blowing it or sucking it in.
It is a highly viable method to spot subtle cracks. Wherever you find the leaks, mark them up immediately.
- Employ A Fog Machine
Up until this point, you should have found most of the leaks. But if you want to go the extra mile for more confirmation, this is another method. But before applying this, you need to seal up all the leaks you have found so far.
You will require a fog machine to perform this task. So, if you do not have one, there are many places you can rent one from.
Firstly, seal up all the air vents in your home or office. Then, plant the fog machine at the blower intake fans or furnace.
Follow down the air duct channel. If there is any existing leak, it will spur out the fog. Seal it up!
Those are the easiest and basic methods of detecting leaks in the air ducts. I hope you get to have a permanent solution to your air duct problem.
Check our air duct cleaning equipment for your duct cleaning need.