Added Extra Insulation Around Ducts
By tmgeorgo
Last month I finally took care of a project I've been meaning to do since I moved into my house--wrapping my ducts with more insulation.
The ducts in my crawlspace are insulated on the inside and there wasn't a whole lot of insulation in them, so they were rather energy inefficient. To correct that, I bought a tube of duct mastic, some metal foil tape, and several rolls of R-6 duct wrap from the Home Depot and spent a few afternoons sealing leaks and wrapping insulation around the all of the ducts. Total cost of the materials was around $130.
To check for leaks, I turned on the HVAC system fan and felt for air leaks at every seam on the entire run, then covered each leaky seam with mastic until I couldn't feel anymore air coming out. The process was a real eye opener too, I never knew how many tiny and not so tiny leaks existed in my ducts! After I got all of the leaks filled as best I could, I wrapped the ducts with insulation and taped all the seams with foil tape.
The temperature of the air coming out of my registers is about 5-10 degrees F warmer now than it was before I did the work, which is great. My furnance won't have to run as long to warm up each room so I'll save energy using my existing thermostat settings.
Today I got the first natural gas utility bill since I completed the project and it reported that I used fewer therms this month than last November, even though this month was colder than the last. A couple more years like this and the cost of materials will be paid for by the energy savings.
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Member since: 11/29/06
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Home owner who likes both small remodeling and energy efficiency related home improvement projects. I...
tmgeorgo
I'm planning to get an energy audit done myself, once I feel like I've knocked out everything that I can do on my own. I really want to have a pressure test done on my house and ducts, and thermal imaging to see where the leaks are. With any luck, our local utilities will start a program where the audits are offered at a reduced cost to home owners.
kestrel
We had an energy audit done a few years ago which was really helpful. Using thermal photography they were able to find cold pockets in a few different places. Turns out the builder/original owners cut a few corners and did not insulate around our fireplace, at the top of a vent hole and behind a porch overhang. Sure enough when you placed your hands on the inside of those parts of the walls they were very cold to touch. After I insulated the walls were much warmer and our utility bill was much less.
Jim
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