Month: February 2020

Though it’s a hidden element in your home, ductwork is crucial to your home comfort. It’s the system by which warm or cool air circulates throughout your home. And all your conditioned air, whether it’s warmed or cooled, has to travel through these ducts. As such, it’s essential to have a well-maintained duct system in your home.

What Is Ductwork?

At ACS Air Conditioning Services, we take ductwork very seriously. Our heating and cooling professionals know what an important role your home’s air ducts play in so many areas—your comfort, energy bills, and health most specifically. Here in Tucson, we see the difference between ductwork that is well sealed and maintained and ducts that are not on a regular basis.

Your Arizona home’s ductwork or air ducts are corridors through which your warmed or cooled air travels back and forth to your heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system and to the vents in your home. It’s comprised of a system of ducts and pipes, typically metal, and has seams that are expertly sealed when they are first installed. Several places may also be insulated to help reduce energy loss.

Why Don’t You See Your Ducts?

Most of your ductwork is hidden behind walls or in places not as frequently used as other areas of your home are. You most likely don’t see the majority of it. Often it’s in the attic, and for most of us, ductwork can fall into the out-of-sight, out-of-mind category. But this mindset can compromise your indoor comfort, cost you money, and even affect your health.

Why Seal and Insulate Your Ductwork?

Properly sealing and insulating your ducts prevents your home’s treated air from leaking out the duct system. According to the US Department of Energy (DoE), 20 to 40 percent of energy is lost from most duct systems. Ducts are usually constructed from sheet metal or fiberglass, both thin materials. It’s easy for your circulating air to leak through these materials as well as through any duct seams.

Additionally, your duct insulation protects your ductwork from mold and mildew growth, because your home’s cool air travels through ducts located in warm areas of your house. This can cause condensation in your ducts, which encourages that mold and mildew. Insulating your ducts regulates the temperature and prevents this scenario.

Why Maintain Your Ducts?

Over time, your ductwork’s seals can deteriorate and rust, and your insulation can lose its effectiveness, both causing you problems. That’s why it’s so important to regularly have professionals inspect your duct system and address any leaks.

Poorly maintained and leaky ductwork can cause the following problems:

• An increase in your heating and cooling bills

Leaks in your ducts can occur where the ducts are joined. Leaked air is wasted air. Your furnace or air conditioner has expended energy, that you pay for, to heat or cool the air. When that air does not make it to the desired locations in your home, your HVAC unit has to work twice as hard to make up for the energy lost—it’s essentially throwing away money.

• A negative effect on your home’s indoor comfort

With energy leaking from your ductwork, your inside temperature can continuously vary and leave you without the comfort you expect. No matter what type of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system you have and how energy efficient it is, if you have leaky ducts, your system can’t provide you an efficient level of comfort and live up to its potential.

• Poor health for you

Leaks can cause undesirables from the air to leak into your duct system, meaning contaminants like exhaust, fumes, carbon monoxide, or many other pollutants can enter your duct system and circulate around your home without you knowing it. This can cause a myriad of problems including causing respiratory problems or exacerbating problems you may already have, such as asthma or allergies.

Call Us Today to Check Your Duct System

To diagnose and correct your leaky duct problem is a simple process that will greatly improve the comfort and health of your Tucson, AZ, home. Our ACS Air Conditioning Services technicians are experts with ductwork and its installation and maintenance. Call us at 520-230-5668 or contact us online for help with your air ducts.

Our highly climate-controlled indoor environments can often be extremely comfortable in our modern world. Combine that with the fact so many of our daily needs are easily met without needing to go outside, and you find a society that spends nearly all its time indoors. As a result, poor indoor air quality has become a significant area of concern as a contributor to potential health problems.

Our team at ACS Air Conditioning Services, along with many manufacturers of air filtration and air purification products, are working to provide tools to help you ensure clean indoor air for you and your family. Here are some details about currently available solutions.

Air Filters

Air filters are typically a part of your Tucson home’s heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system. Before circulating air enters your furnace or air conditioner to be heated or cooled, it passes through a filter to trap and remove a wide range of particulates.

Many different types of air filters are available, ranging from very basic and inexpensive to more costly versions that filter out microscopic particles.

An industry-wide rating system promoted by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) helps consumers compare one type of filter to another in terms of performance. A minimum efficiency reporting value (MERV) rating system measures a filter’s ability to remove particles from the air. Filters carry a rating somewhere between 1 and 16, with the higher values signaling finer filtration.

Air filters can be made of many different types of materials. You may have used a layered fiberglass filter that’s surrounded by a metal grate or a pleated polyester filter in a cardboard frame. These filters typically need to be replaced every one to three months.

Homeowners living in Arizona who have family members with allergies, asthma, or other respiratory illnesses may want to consider using a high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter. These filters capture 99.97 percent of all particles 0.3 microns or larger. The National Air Filtration Association (NAFA) specifies six different levels of HEPA filters.

Air Cleaners

Air cleaners are often used in conjunction with HVAC-related air filters. These are usually separate appliances typically designed for a single room or a certain square footage of space. A wide variety of different technologies and systems are available, and each one usually focuses on a particular set of particles.

For example, home ultraviolet (UV) air cleaners were developed from purifiers used in hospitals for disinfecting the air. These tackle bacteria, viruses, mold, and other pathogens. On the other hand, activated carbon filters are very effective in removing gasses, odors, smoke, and other particles.

HEPA air purifiers work in a similar way to HEPA filters and remove dust, pet dander, pollen, and mold spores from your indoor air. Although HEPA air purifiers are effective at filtering out very small particles, they are unable to remove bacteria and viruses.

Another type of air purification technology is using ions. These purifiers emit negative ions into your living space, which attract positive ions like dust. The resulting particles become heavier and land on your home’s flooring or other surfaces to be collected during vacuuming and dusting chores. Remember to use a HEPA vacuum bag to maximize the capturing of the resulting particles.

Although all of these air purification systems typically work in a single area or confined space,  you can invest in house-wide purification systems as well. For instance, electronic air cleaners work with your HVAC system by employing static electricity, HEPA filters, and ionic cleaners in a single system. Centralized air cleaners can be installed as part of your ductwork and can complement your HVAC filtration system, and air-to-air exchange systems will allow you to pull in more fresh air from outside.

Contact Us for Clean Indoor Air

At ACS Air Conditioning Services here in Tucson, Arizona, our professionals can provide more details about air filters and air purification systems. Our trained team can help you choose an air treatment system that can meet the needs of you and your family. Call us at 520-230-5668 or request service online today.