Duct Blaster – Save Money on Energy Bills
Air leaks throughout a home can increase heating and cooling costs by up to 45% and also contribute to wellness and safety problems. Discovering hidden air leakage sites, can be extremely difficult without the use of a blower door. A blower door utilizes a fan to pressurize (force air into) or de-pressurize (force air out of) a building. When the fan operates, it is easy to feel the leaks- air leaking into and out of cracks in the building envelope. Blower doors are able to measure the comparative leakiness of a building.
There are over a million miles of forced-air ductwork in American homes. If ducts leak, energy is wasted. Leaky ducts can significantly increase energy needed for heating and cooling. Leaking supply ducts can send valuable conditioned air into places such as attics and crawlspaces. Similarly, leaky return ducts draw unconditioned air into the duct system. Simple duct sealing processes can reduce energy consumption and make the home more comfortable.
Duct leakage measures are employed to diagnose duct leakage problems, approximate energy deprivation from duct leaks, and affirm the quality of duct system installation. A Duct Blaster is one diagnostic tool used by energy professionals to ascertain how leaking, or energy-inefficient, a duct system is.
A Duct Blaster has a fine-tuned fan able of blowing up to 1500 cubic feet per minute (CFM) of air, a pressure tap, and flexible ducting for hook-up with a duct system. It can precisely appraise duct leakage rates of between 20 and 1500 CFM. The full unit weighs less than 10 pounds. Duct leak testing can promptly ascertain the caliber of ductwork installation.
The Duct Blaster is attached to one entry into the duct system, with all other vents and uptakes temporarily sealed. The Duct Blaster uses a fan to force air into the system until a standard atmosphere is reached. Consequent measurements disclose how much air is leaking out from the ductwork. This signals the quantity of conditioned air, hot or cold, that is not being delivered to the areas of the home for which it was destined. Put differently, the energy accustomed to heat or cool down the conditioned air leaked out of the system and was emaciated. Decreasing the leakiness of ductwork betters the energy-efficiency of a home.
The Duct Blaster is a comparatively cheap, simple, and exact characteristic technique that calls for only one piece of equipment. Low flows can be measured precisely. Tests can be performed on new homes prior to dry-stone wall is installed–making duct sealing off a more leisurely chore.