The ductwork in your home is essential to both your comfort and health, delivering both hot and cold air where needed. But oftentimes, says John Barron, owner of Barron Heating AC Electrical & Plumbing, those duct systems aren’t anywhere close to achieving airtight efficiency.
“Duct systems are commonly known for considerable leakage,” he says. “Many of our customers are surprised to learn that a typical duct system — regardless of the age and the building codes when it’s put in — can leak anywhere from 25 to over 40%.”
That leakage can affect your home and family in multiple ways, including a loss of efficiency due to conditioned (paid-for) air that escapes while traveling where it needs to go. And where good air escapes, leaky ducts can pull unhealthy air into your home from places prone to mold, insects, and other unwanted contaminants.
While higher-efficiency furnaces and HVAC systems are usually helpful to a home’s performance, it doesn’t mean much if the system they’re connected to leaks an ample amount of air. Just like deflated tires on your car, leaky ducts can put a damper on your home’s efficiency, comfort, performance, and safety.
Roughly 80% of air leakage in a home, John continues, occurs in areas like crawl spaces, attics, walls, and cavities that have gaps. And while some of a home’s leaky duct work can be accessed in a fairly simple manner, other areas of leakage require removing insulation or are inaccessible.
That’s where Aeroseal duct sealing comes in.
The technology — developed in the 1990s through an Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy-funded grant for research at UC-Berkeley — uses an aerosol-based, non-toxic sealant that’s injected into your duct system to find leaks and plug them.
How It Works
You could liken the way Aeroseal works to how human blood works to clot a cut. While larger duct breaches must be identified and repaired first, the sealant can plug holes up to 5/8 of an inch (roughly the size of a quarter), and narrower holes that extend for many feet.
Air Solutions by Barron has been using this technology to improve the comfort, health, and energy efficiency of local homes since 2012, and was the first official Aeroseal provider in Washington State. Since that time, the company has made over 2,000 duct repairs using the technology.
“There’s nothing else like it,” says John Barron. “It’s a service we’re proud of that provides all three pillars of home performance. Our customers love the increased comfort, better health, and energy efficiency of their sealed-up home.”
The Best Way to Seal
Aeroseal was first introduced to Barron’s service offerings after learning of the technology at a 2012 building science boot camp held in Vancouver, Washington. The eye-opening presentation highlighted how to best solve performance-related home issues as well as Aeroseal’s ability to fix a leaky duct system in a long-term and unobtrusive way.
While other duct sealing mechanisms exist, many Barron customers find that none boast the effectiveness and longevity of Aeroseal, which maintains its shape and consistency over time – potentially as long as 40 years.
By comparison, duct tape is often used on systems in older homes, but typically fails to be effective after only about six months. Newer homes — which can still have duct leakage despite their age and improved building codes — often use what’s known as mastic sealant. Essentially a type of resin applied to the outside of ducts, mastic can efficiently seal leaks initially but often dries out, shrinks, and cracks, leading to a resumption of leakage.
The Path to a Better Home
Signs like excessive dust, allergies, or temperature inconsistencies can often indicate something is amiss with your home’s airflow system. But testing is key. Before Aeroseal is applied to your home’s duct system, Barron technicians will provide a duct leakage test. This test can be done as a courtesy following any routine duct cleaning but can also be scheduled alone through a simple phone call. Testing, not guessing, is the best way to know if your home would benefit from Aeroseal.
The Aeroseal process can also uncover additional home performance issues that might never be found with traditional sealing methods.
“It’s like an MRI,” John Barron says. “As a result, something that would remain uncovered and unnoticed gets a chance to be dealt with.”
John was personally involved with Aeroseal jobs in the first year his company began using the technology. And in many cases over the years, he’s heard from customers who felt like they were living in a new house after using Aeroseal — one more comfortable and healthy, with fewer allergens and dust. In some cases, this improved air quality even improved customers’ health concerns.
The total time required of an Aeroseal job varies but it typically takes half to a full day of work. A great deal of preparation is involved, including properly setting up equipment and sealing off registers and grills of the ducting system.
Once the sealant is introduced to the system, it can take anywhere from 15 minutes up to an hour or two, depending on the size of the system and the amount of leakage being fixed. Likewise, cost can vary slightly, but price doesn’t necessarily increase drastically with a larger house.
Other Ductwork Options
Traditional air duct cleaning, absent of Aeroseal, is also available through Barron, and can improve the air quality and efficiency of your home. Ideally, your ductwork should be cleaned every four or five years for non-sealed systems. But for a duct system sealed with Aeroseal, cleaning may not be needed again for some time, owing to minimal dust accumulation.
From air duct cleaning to duct repair with Aeroseal duct sealing, the Air Solutions team at Barron is experienced in finding the best solutions for whatever your indoor air quality needs may be. As always, improving the comfort, health, and energy efficiency of your home is top priority, and Barron is dedicated to their mission of Improving Lives.
For more information on Air Solutions by Barron, please visit their website or call 360.676.1131.
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