The design of your home’s ductwork counts for a great deal in terms of comfort and energy savings. In fact, its efficiency will essentially dictate how comfortable you are in your home, and how much energy you can save over the years. Without proper ductwork design, no matter how efficiently your heating and cooling equipment operates, you’ll be less than satisfied with the results.
The following five tips will help you to optimize comfort and savings:
- Locate as much of the ductwork system as possible within the conditioned spaces of your home, or those spaces that will receive heat in winter and cold air in summer. This will help to reduce energy losses as conditioned air travels through those locations.
- Position supply registers along the interior walls of your home. Because most HVAC equipment is installed in the center of the home’s basement, locating supply registers close to the equipment will ensure shorter duct runs, with fewer losses in temperature, which commonly occurs when duct runs are longer.
- Avoid locating supply registers close to bathroom or kitchen exhaust fans, as the fans will tend to draw conditioned air from the supply registers before that air can reach your living spaces.
- Place volume adjusters, often called dampers, where conditioned air leaves your HVAC equipment, instead of at the supply registers. This will give you more control over air balancing for optimal comfort.
- The final step in an effective ductwork design is to have the entire system sealed tight. Air leaks in ducts contribute to significant energy losses, and will greatly affect your home heating and cooling bills. With a tightly-sealed ductwork system, you can ensure that conditioned air remains inside the ducts, and help to guarantee its full potential for performance.
Planning a new ductwork system? Keep these five tips in mind for optimal ductwork design, and contact the experts at Arpi’s Industries for help. Serving Greater Calgary-area homeowners for almost 50 years, we provide local homeowners with comprehensive home-comfort services, and our proven track record shows we get results—each and every time. Call us today with your questions, or to ask for references.
Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about duct design and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
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