I've made videos in the past where a lot of Heating and Air Pro seem to take exception to the the things that I'm doing videos on and I think it's part of the reason why sometimes it's hard to make friends in this industry. sometimes they are either. Maybe they don't want the truth to get out. I Don't know, but I was watching a video from a guy this past week that is a I mean I guess he's a pretty prominent individual in our trade.

He certainly is employed by one of the more prominent organizations and he looks older and distinguished and so he looks smart. But then he makes a comment I'm going to tell you what the comment was. The comment was duct work can't be too large and if you have someone tell you that it can be, then they don't know what they're talking about. Don't take their advice.

Maybe I don't have it exactly word for word, but that's pretty much what he said. I think that first of all that that is not true I'm going to show you why in this video why that's not true I'm going to give you three scenarios I think is exact comment. It was something to the effect of there is no scenario that duct work is too big and I'm going to show you three scenarios in this video and I could probably show you more. but I'm going to just show you three scenarios that duct work can be too big I was reluctant to even do this video.

I've done other videos where I've gotten hateful emails or comments on our videos. but when you see guys make comments like this and then you as the homeowner, you may even have a heating and air guy come in your home that's heard that and and is regurgitating that and they say to you, if you have another guy say that duct work is too big, then they don't know what they're talking about and they're just repeating the same stuff to sound smart. I Just think it's I don't know, it's ignorant. If nothing else, it's just a little odd.

I'm going to show you in this video: three scenarios where duct work can be too big now. I Do think there's some context that can be had here, right? Are there scenarios where the duct work can't be too big? Yes. If you've got a return duct and most res residential applications, it's a good thing for it to be bigger, it can't be too big. That's probably a a safe blanket statement to make, right.

so there is some context to be had with that. There are times where his statement is true, especially in a world where most duct work today is undersized. Most duct work that I see when I go into a house here in Virginia at least. I Would say the majority of the new construction duct work we see installed is undersized.

It's not big enough to carry the amount of air flow and and we see a scenario or a day and age now where most heating and air systems are starving for air. I Think that there is a reason why he may be saying what he's saying and he goes later in the video and talks about the registers and the throw of the air and and all these different things. But that's not the point here. His blanket statement is there's no scenario that duct work can be oversized and I think that's untrue and I'm going to show you why, but before we do I Just want to thank our sponsor for this video.

Here's a short clip from Aeros Seal I Wanted to take a quick break from the video and thank the sponsor of this video Aeros Seal Leaky Duckor is one of the biggest, if not the biggest energy wasters in most homes in the United States and my favorite way of fixing that problem is Aeros Seal. They'll come into your home, they'll test your duct work and how leaky it is. They'll seal all the duct work with a machine and then they'll test it again and make sure that you got what you paid for. Customers have reported a significant savings on their energy bills after using Aeros Seal.

I'll put a link down in the description of this video. Thanks again to Aeros Seal And now let's get back to the video. So here we go guys. Three scenarios where duct work can be oversized.

Bear with me. We're going to use some graphics here and I'm going to make it real simple I hope that any homeowner and Pro if a pro happens to catch this video where we show that duct work can be oversized now I Will say that in all of these scenarios we're talking about the supply side because I think again in most scenarios the return is it's okay to make it larger, the bigger, the better, the more air flow, the less restriction and so on. But but with Supply there are scenarios where it can be oversized. Scenario number One: So I'm going to be drawing this out.

Let's just say we've got a small house with a 2ton heat pump system and air handler. Very simple setup. most Ranchers with 8ft ceilings that have somewhere between I don't know a, to 12200 Square ft here in Virginia this is the type of setup we're going to see small home that someone may have that they've added a heat pump system too and I'm going to show you just real easily how we get to that part where the duct work is oversized and so we're going to just draw out the floor plan here. and let's just say again, we're looking at say 1,000 to 12 00 ft normal house.

As far as the floor plan, let's just say we've got. You know. Let's say the living room is here and then let's say we've got the kitchen here and then let's just say we've got a a bedroom, a bedroom, and a small bathroom. Small full bath.

so just a small house. in fact I grew up in a house very similar to this. The floor plan isn't laid out this simple, but I want it to be simple so you can see what I'm talking about. We said we've got a two ton system so we're going to run probably a 6 in to each bedroom.

Let's say it's about 100 square ft, 100 to 150 square ft. The kitchen and living room are going to be probably. Let's just say the living room and kitchen are equally 350 square ft. That's just for our little example here.

So we're probably going to run a couple ducks to each one of those and then we're going to run. In most cases we would run just a small duck to that bathroom. you know, maybe a 5 in duct, maybe even a 4 in in some scenarios. but most scenarios we're going to probably do a 5 in depending on the layout of all the duct work.

But getting back to our the point we're trying to make here in this video is this guy says no duct work. It can't be oversized. What if during the layout of this duct work, we've got our air handler here, got the return connecting here, then we've got the supply coming off here. So here's our supply trunk and all of our Branch lines coming off.

And let's just say that this bathroom right here. We just go ahead and run us a three foot three foot big round flex duct like I Don't even think they make flex duct that big. but let's just say they do big old three foot around supply duct coming off of our supply on our trunk right here. and we just we just cut a big hole in the ceiling of that room.

He said duct work can't be too oversized. So here we are. We've got this big three foot big duct into this tiny little bathroom. and imagine the amount of air flow that now that we've cut a big hole in that trunk.

how the rest of these ducks are affected. Imagine in that living room how much air is now going to make it to that large room now that you've installed this 3ot 36 in in diameter round duct into that bathroom right now? of course. I'm being ridiculous. I'm being extreme.

We're using extreme examples here: I'm trying to show you the guy that said this is the one that said that duct work can't be too big. Well, that's just simply as you can see. not true, right? The rest of the duct work would be affected. If it was in air conditioning mode, that bathroom would become a meat locker.

While the rest of the house probably struggled to reach or keep temperature, it just shows you. One example of why saying that duct work just can't be oversized is just untrue. Okay, so that's scenario number one. Scenario number two is it plays very similar into what we just looked at from a floor plan standpoint.

But let's just look at just a trunk line and in general. So if we've got our air handler here and we've got our trunk line that comes off and then let's say we've got all of our Branch lines that come off towards the end Here, we don't want to come off the very end of this trunk then that affects our air right. So we we need that to be capped and we need to come back at least a foot from the end of the trunk before we install our first Branch line. and we've got several Branch lines off the end of that.

And imagine if we were to again install a 3ot duct round duct coming off this trunk line here, how would that affect these ducks further down the line? Imagine I've actually used this analogy I Believe it was one of our live shows recently where we talked about how a straw I Think in the analogy that this guy that made this statement, he uses a garden hose. But let's just say a straw. So you're going to you're going to blow through a straw right? and then let's just say we tape the end of that straw. Okay, we're going to.

regulate. We're going to put the same amount of pressure through that straw. But now we're going to take a needle or something and poke a bunch of holes in the end of that straw and blow. And you might start to feel some air come out of those holes.

You know you're you're blowing through the straw. You've got air coming out of those small holes at the end. And then take that straw. and then just take a pair of scissors and cut just a hole.

Cut half of that duct, open there straw. I Mean not duct. And now you've got this gigantic hole in the side of that straw and you're trying to blow the same amount of air through there. Imagine those holes at the end of the straw near where it's taped, how much air they're going to get.

Then I would argue that they are going to get very little air. if any, most of the air is going to take the path of least resistance. In that scenario, that air is going to go out where you've now cut a hole in the side of that straw. And then finally, the third analogy would be in a lot of homes we see here in the US we will see the trunk line often teed Okay, now sometimes it's done well right to not affect the static of the air and in that trunk.

but sometimes it's not done well. Sometimes it's got lots of dead ends and corners and so on. Let's just say just roughly here. Let's say we've got our furnace here and we've got our coil mounted on top of that for our air conditioning and we're going to come off of that.

And then we're going to have a te coming off of it. And this is not uncommon this. this could be vertical. It could be horizontal.

We've seen that in some crawl spaces and things like that. We might see it in an attic where the furnace is upright and UPF flow. So we've got our furnace here, we've got our coil, and we've got our Te here. and in a lot of cases, depending on how the house is laid out, let's just say that this end of the house only needs say, 400 Cfms.

So this side of the tea might really neck down here or just be a smaller side of the tea and you might only have say a 10-in round or some sort of, you know, smaller square duct. Going to that end, you might see a larger whether it's a 12in round or bigger square duct going to this this end of the house. Well, what if you were to just say flip that Te I mean he's saying that you can't oversize it. So let's say that we were to do a 12in round here.

and actually, instead of flipping it, we'll just do a 12-in round here and you're not necking it down like you should. Duct work can't be oversized. In fact, the end of the house that needs 400 Cfms instead of doing a 12in round I'm going to just go ahead and do a 20in round to that end of the house. We got 12 in here and we're going to go ahead and just do a really big 20in to this end of the house part of the house that only needs say, 400 Cfms.

On our original drawing, our ducor here says that you would be looking at somewhere over 2,000 depending on what you're using for your supply. Uh, static. You know you see, we got 20 in. We could be up over if you're using 0.1 up over 2500 over 2,000 if you're using 08 or even 07.

In this scenario, much larger than what you actually need. But again, as he said, duct work can't be oversized I Don't know if that helps at all. I Think just in general. I'm seeing this trend of guys saying things like that There's these guys in positions where folks are listening to them and they'll make blanket statements.

It almost reminds me of politics when folks will say blanket statements and just kind of make a a statement overall kinds of scenarios when in reality we need a little context here and to say something like hey, all duct work cannot be oversized And if someone says that, it can be oversized and they don't know what they're talking about, it just shows his ignorance. To be honest with you here, he is at working for a prominent organization with a very good reputation and he's going to make comments like that. So I think it's silly I think it's ignorant I think it's why I Probably don't get invited to some of those events and things like that, but I'm okay with that I Hope this helps you. If you're a homeowner in the market for a heating and air system, the goal here is to hopefully help you with that.

Hopefully you learn something and hopefully you're making an informed decision when you're hiring for your next heating and air. Installation If you like this video I Think you'll like this one even more. It's where I Talk about four fixes for leaky duct work. Thanks for watching.

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