HVAC Ductwork Insulation and Maintenance

Your HVAC ductwork is the series of tubes that carry treated air around the building. If you are installing a new central air or heat pump system in your house, you should make sure the ductwork that will carry your new high efficiency air conditioner is up to par with the system. As all the air flows through these ducts, any leaks or problems will ruin the effect of the whole system.

When installing or diagnosing a system for Denver HVAC repairs, a good technician will inspect all the ducts. First off he is looking to see if the existing duct system will match the new air handler that was installed. This will also show if there are any leaks or other problems. Finally, ducts should be insulated and routed in a certain way to maintain safety. This process is called checking for ductwork integrity.

The average residential HVAC system has some leakage. So you can get just as much cost saving some times in fixing the ducts as buying a new high efficiency system. If 20% of the air is leaking, then the system will have to work harder. This leads to higher bills and possible Denver furnace repairs. So do not feel shy to ask the HVAC tech to check the integrity of the ducts. It is their job after all.

In some locations your HVACR system needs special consideration. In wet areas or flood plains, the duct work needs to be water tight. After a flood, you will probably need to replace the insulation, but if the ducts were not sealed you might have to replace the ducts as well as any parts that were damaged by infiltrating water. A water tight duct is also obviously air tight.

To maintain the efficiency of this well sealed ductwork, your Denver HVAC company will install insulation around it. The insulation also serves to protect the inside of your home from the temperature variations caused by hot or cool air flowing. At these temperature change points moisture tends to accumulate. As water saturated air below the dew point gets in contact with warm beams, then it will sweat. This ruins the ducts and can cause mold and mildew problems. To counteract this make sure there is a vapor barrier between the treated air and the outside.

Heat Pump Repair Mysteries

HVAC technicians must go through a significant amount of training before they are certified by their state board to work on your air conditioner. However sometimes there are customers with problems with their HVAC systems that can only be figured out with step by step deductive reasoning... and sometimes a little luck. Modern AC units are less finicky than the old ones, but they also incorporate new technology that many Denver air conditioning services companies are not familiar with.

Heat pump technology in particular has advanced quite a lot recently. While the actual operation of a heat pump is simpler than an air conditioner, one in particular required a Denver HVAC technician friend of mine a long time unravel. The unit, a R-410A heat pump was installed and operating fine in the first year. Then summer began and the owner switched the unit over to cooling. It worked fine, but after a few days the owner noticed that the fan never turned off.

Now most experienced air conditioner techs would assume this was one of two things - a minor fault in the thermostat, or damaged compressor electronics. However, as the heat increased, the unit never turned off and the house did not cool down. So of course the owner calls her nearest Denver heating company.

This is the point where the tech must take all the evidence into account in order to investigate. Of course most AC techs do not view this job as a murder mystery, but the use of logical steps that need to be taken in order to figure out the problem are similar.

The first thing he notices is that it is hot. The interior is almost 90 degrees and the compressor is obviously not wicking any moisture out of the air. However at the compressor suction inlet, the temperature is 70 degrees, and 60 degrees at the outlet.

Our technician had to review the key facts: The unit worked fine in the summer. The blower fan did not shut off once switched to cooling. In many heat pumps there is a emergency back-up electric heating system. It is possible the heat pump never worked, because of moisture in the cooling lines or for whatever reason. During the winter, the unit may have used back up heating the whole time without the owner's knowledge. At this stage it is all speculation, because the problem could only be that the filter is clogged or that the compressor is dirty.

However it turns out that with 410A coolant systems, using older lines or synthetic oil cooling will clog the system. The technician used a systematic approach using the heat pump manual and his training. In the end our furnace repair hero had to drain the coolant and install new piping in the compressor.