Troubleshooting Your Furnace

Posted on: 20 September 2017

With winter getting nearer, homeowners are looking for easy ways to make their heating system more efficient. Keeping your house warm can come at quite a cost, especially if you don't regularly service your HVAC system. You can lose a lot of heat if your furnace is located in a garage, basement, utility room, or any other space where the temperature is not controlled in unison with the rest of the house. You don't want to move your furnace or anything major like that; you just want to insulate the ducts that are connected to your furnace and that feed into your walls. Since these air ducts are exposed to the colder temperatures, you can lose a lot of heat, even through those that are only a few feet of exposed ducting. This article explains how to add insulation to these short, exposed sections of ducting.

Using Jackets or Insulation Rolls

You generally have two options when insulating air ducts. You can buy pre-sized jackets that are manufactured to fit ducts of a certain size. The other option is to buy a continuous roll of fiberglass insulation that you simply wrap around the ducts yourself.

The jackets are convenient, especially if all of your air ducts are the same size. Often, there will be a few varying sizes between the furnace and the wall. As a result, you would need to buy several different jacket sizes, and you would probably end up with a lot of extra pieces. If you use continuous fiberglass rolls, it doesn't really matter what size the ducts are. You just wrap them around the ducts.

Taping Your Duct Seams

No matter which style you choose, it's a good idea to check your air ducts for leaks before you apply the insulation. Simply turn on your heater and feel for any streams of warm air escaping through the duct seems. Even if your seams look and feel air tight, it might be a good idea to tape them. Taping the seams will secure them for the future and prevent them from getting knocked loose. This is important because once your ducts are insulated, finding air leaks and taping them up will be a big hassle.

When it comes to insulating your air ducts, you want to be liberal and tightly tape down the fiberglass. This cheap project is a simple way to increase efficiency of your heater and possibly reduce your monthly bills.

For additional information on how to improve your heater's efficiency, contact a company like Scott's Heating & Air Conditioning Services.