Can you reuse your duct work? If you're having your heating and air system replaced? A lot of guys in our industry will call that a change out. Where you're just changing out the boxes if you will, you're going to be swapping out the outdoor unit and the indoor unit. If it's a split system or if it's a package unit, then you know it's all in one. But either way, you got duct work running to it and in a lot of cases they will reuse that duct work in this video.

I Want to talk about some things that a lot of folks don't consider when they're reusing their duct work. And I think the last thing we're going to talk about in this video may surprise you and it's a solution for sealing old and new duct work a lot better. but let's dive into it: reusing your duct work. Some things to think about.

The first thing is I Think in general, in our industry, it's pretty well known that duct work is going to last longer than your average heating and air system. Now how long that is is a little bit disputed. It kind of depends on a few things. number one being where you are in the country, if you're in a more humid area and that duct work is made of material such as metal that will eventually corrode and break down, and things like that that obviously plays a role in the life expectancy of that duct work.

Another thing is in general, most guys would probably agree again exceptions to every rule, but they would agree that duct work's going to last around 20 to 30 years. I've seen systems where you're replacing the equipment and the duct work is okay. You can reuse it. It's going to last longer than that heating and air system anyway.

And so for the duct work itself, the materials. they're going to last longer than that equipment. but I would encourage you to even if you already know who you're going to hire. If you have a heating and air company that you really like and they've always treated you well, you're not going to get multiple quotes out there.

I Would recommend getting at least a couple inspections of that duct work. In my experience, there are times when heating an air guys will be those box. Changers They'll swap that equipment and they're not taking the time to inspect that duct work. Make sure it's size correctly, checking things like static pressures and making sure that everything is tiptop shape for efficiency and so on.

If you already know who you're going to hire to do the equipment. I Would recommend getting a couple opinions on that duct work. which leads into our next concern and it's pretty well known in our industry. you can Google this if you want and that is the majority.

and now I say the majority. Most duct work out there in homes is not sized correctly. These homes are being built, they're in the new construction phase and of course now we have codes and things in place to kind of help with some of this stuff. But for years guys would were just slapping stuff in.

they were slapping duct work in. No one ever actually uses a ductulator to make sure everything is balanced well. A lot of these guys will even argue on our YouTube channel. Sometimes they'll say well, you can just put in dampers to kind of balance everything and we've talked about that before and how that's not really a good solution in comparison to actually installing and sizing the duct work properly.

In the old days they would have these big beefy, you know you I Think about some of the oil furnaces that I've seen where they have these big beefy fan motors. They don't even care that it's high static. they'll push air through the tiniest little holes and they're just bigger, beefier, less efficient type of equipment. And now that we're moving more into equip that's more efficient, it becomes more Paramount proper air flow, static, pressures, air across that coil.

And if you've got duct work that's not sized correctly, let's say it's under Siiz. That becomes a bigger deal than it used to be. So that gets back to not just inspecting that duct work, but when you're getting your other opinions and having different folks check that duct work, making sure that it's sized properly for the size system that you're installing in that space. So as we move closer to our last concern I Just want to point out, obviously the big thing here is if you don't replace that duct work, it can save you money, right? If you're reusing that duct work, you're able to get the most out of that the life of that duct work.

You're not having to send more waste to the landfill. increasing your carbon footprint. That is a a big concern for a lot of folks. and the last thing is it's faster, right? So if you do have a heating and air system that needs to be replaced, a lot of good companies can have that system replaced in a day, if if not two, depending on the situation.

But if you're replacing all of the duct work depending on the type of Manpower that that company has, it could take much longer than that. And so the last thing I'll say is if you are going to reuse duct work you've had it inspected. They made sure it was visually it looked good. It passed the sniff test if you will and it was sized correctly and now you're going to reuse it.

I Think the last thing that I would just recommend to you to maybe look into is a company called Aeros Seal has a really cool product where they can seal that duct work using a system that will actually test the duct work. seeing how leaky it is. it'll do pressure tests and then they'll actually do the treatment. It will seal all of these holes and make the duct work more efficient.

and you don't lose all that energy. A lot of folks don't realize one of the biggest energy wasters in your home is leaky ductwork. After they do their process and they seal all those holes, then they will retest that duct work and make sure that it's good and sealed up now. and so that's something that I would look into.

Air Seal is a sponsor of our Channel They sponsored a few videos and it was important to me when I first looked at their product how good is this product and and I got to tell you it's pretty crazy how good of a solution this is for a lot of folks. If you're going to reuse that duct work, if you're going to try to get the most amount of life out of this duct work, it's not just reusing it, it's reusing it. but also get getting the most out of that duct work, making sure that it's not wasting a bunch of energy. And finally, if you're going to reuse that duct work, you might want to look into having it inspected on the inside, making sure that it's good and clean.

You may actually want to have it cleaned before you do the Aerrow Seal, but that can also help improve the performance of that duct work and also the cleanliness of the air you're breathing, right? So let me know your thoughts. Are you reusing duct work? Has this been a concern for you? I'd Love to hear about that in the chat down below for more information on Aeros seal. I'll also put a link into the description of this video. You can check that out 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 Hit that subscribe button. We'll see you next time.