3 HVAC Ductwork ISSUES Homeowners NEED To Know!

hey guys before we get to the video for more tips and tricks in the heating and air industry please click that subscribe button thank you hey guys joshua griffin air and the new hvac guide wanted to do a video for you guys that are homeowners that you don't really know what you're looking at when it comes to duct work and obviously there are certain you know normal things like you know there shouldn't be holes in your ductwork and it shouldn't be falling apart sort of stuff but there are times when homeowners ask me aside from the question what is the best hvac brand probably the most asked question i get is how do i know if what i'm looking at is is what i should be looking at how do i know if there's a problem with the ductwork how do i know that the heating and air companies not just telling me that it's good and it's not and i believe there are three things that you can look at and know right off the bat if there's something wrong we're talking about three things that you can look at the ductwork and say yup there's an issue here and so on we're not gonna get into all the specifics of how to size the ductwork and things like that stuff that the pros should know and all that good stuff but just some things that you can just immediately look at the duct work and say something's not right here and so that's my goal the first of those three things is i've heard it said that the majority now i don't know what the percentage is but the majority of ductwork residential in homes across the united states is not properly sized it's either too big too small usually too small and it's not sized properly and obviously if you don't have a duct later and you don't know how to figure all that out i believe if you're looking at that duct work that one of the obvious things that you can look for is does the duct work sort of what i would call step down so in other words if you have say a system and coming off the supply side you have you know your duct work and as as branch lines come off that duct work it should step down so that way the static stays high enough to continue to push velocity to those rooms that are a little further away from the heating and air unit itself and so i call that you know a sort of a step down you might come off the end of the unit with say a 16 inch round pipe and it might step down to a 14 or even a 12 and so on as it gets further away from the unit the smaller that trunk line should get and i believe you should see some sort of trunk coming off of that unit and then those branch lines coming off of that we'll talk more about that in just a moment the other thing that i would say if you're just again just taking a peek at that system is number of vents in the home and as far as the sizing goes i've been in homes where it doesn't necessarily matter how big the room is you've got a six inch run to the bathroom just like a six inch run to the largest room in the house and so on and you just got all these six inch runs they're all the same and it may sound like common sense but we see it every day we see ductwork that's been installed and it's all the same size and it doesn't really matter what the size of the room is it doesn't take rocket science to understand that a larger room needs more air than a smaller room so if you're looking at your ductwork and you're noticing that you should either see larger ducts going to larger rooms or more ducts you know so you might have for example if you have a space that you want 200 cfms you might have two six inch runs or just one eight inch run so i hope that helps the second thing is getting back to the duct work i've seen it multiple times where we call it sort of a spotter system i think in some parts of the country they call it an octopus system but basically where they come off the end of the unit and they just set a plenum or a box and they just bring all their ducks off of that it just looks like this mess where you just see this box with boom boom boom boom all these ducks coming off of that one box the problem is if you do that there's no way to balance how much air is going through each duck air is just like water and a plumbing system it's gonna find the path of least resistance and blow out that way so obviously we don't want to see that but the other thing is if you do have a trunk line coming off of your unit you don't want to see a duct coming off the very end of that trunk line in fact we usually come back a few feet so imagine you've got this trunk line that's coming out it's stepping down just like we talked about in the first thing but then you get to the very end and it should be capped or it should stop in some way and you should not see any of your branch ducts coming off towards the end of that they should be backed up and you might say well why is that why does that matter imagine a straw imagine you know imagine i've got a straw in my mouth and i'm just blowing through that straw so okay and air is coming out the end of that straw it doesn't matter how many holes you put in that straw the air will still go out the end of that straw right past those holes now again you might get some air coming out of those holes but it's just going to go right through the end of that straw right so the idea is if you were to cap the end of that straw so if we just put a piece of tape over the end of that straw and then put our holes in there then you blow now you have a more balanced system it's got the static pressure to be able to push through all the branch lines and as long as everything size properly it is now balanced and it will distribute air properly throughout the home so that's number two and then the last one is very easy if you look at your heating and air system the return side so if you're looking at your indoor unit and you've got your supply side and you've got your return side your return side ductwork should look appear significantly larger than the supply side so again i'm not getting into all the other ins and outs of duct work i'm sure there's guys that will comment on this video that could maybe give you a few more tips but ultimately i know there's different parts of the country that use different materials and it's better in this environment or that environment so i'm not getting into all of that but again i don't care what part of the country you're in your return air based on static pressure and air flow your return ducts should be larger in general than the supply ducts in almost all cases so i hope that helps that's my three if you are a homeowner you're not really a pro you haven't really taken any classes you're not sure exactly how to balance the ductwork or know if there's an issue i think if you just look for those three things and if one of those things seems off you'll obviously know that maybe you should get a second opinion that maybe that heating and air company that's telling you everything's right even though you got one room that's getting hotter before the rest of them or whatever you'll know that something may be off and maybe you should get a second opinion please subscribe and thanks for watching the last thing i'll say is if you're in the market for a new heating and air system and you're in virginia and the middle peninsula or the northern neck give griffin air a call we'll give you a free estimate and the best warranty in the area but if you're not in our coverage area check out my new website i've even got a little banner up here new hvac guide dot com check out that site because we've put so much information on there it's as if i wrote a book telling folks hey here's the good and the bad avoid this or that i've even got a whole page called no knows things to stay away from and so before you spend thousands check out that website and finally for more tips and tricks in the heating and air industry click that subscribe button thanks for watching

Channel: HVAC Guide for Homeowners

Views: 360,459

Keywords: Ductwork Issues, ductwork problems, duct problems, duct issue, hvac ductwork tips and tricks, hvac ductwork repair, hvac duct, hvac ductwork, hvac in attic problems, hvac issues, hvac duct repair, duct work, hvac ductwork best practices, hvac duct replacement, hvac ductwork cost, hvac ductwork replacement, ductwork, Hvac ductwork installation cost, hvac air flow problems, hvac ductwork installation, hvac ductwork design, ductwork installation, ducts

Id: ULnAGzVUXUY

Length: 8min 6sec (486 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 22 2021