Indoor air quality is a vital part of maintaining a comfortable and healthy home environment. Many homeowners focus on keeping their living spaces clean, but what about the air you breathe? Poor indoor air quality can lead to health concerns, discomfort, and higher energy bills. One effective way to address these issues is through professional duct testing. This service is more essential than ever for ensuring your home’s air remains fresh, clean, and safe.
Have you already scheduled heating maintenance for the fall? This is the most important service you can have done to prepare for the winter, since it gives your heating system the best chance to sweep through the winter without problems, no matter how cold the outside may get. The peace of mind you receive from maintenance is well worth it—and you’ll save money on heating costs as well.
But you may need additional service to help your heating system operate at peak level for the season. You may not know if, but the ductwork in your house might suffer from numerous leaks and gapping. A loss of the airtight integrity of the ducts will reduce the effectiveness of your heater and lead to inflated bills. It can even lower the quality of the indoor air.
The way to solve this problem is with professional air sealing in Howell, MI, which is a service we offer. You may not need the work, but if you do, the difference it makes is tremendous.
The performance of your air conditioning system is not as short-term as “will it keep my house cool today?” Great AC performance is about getting the most from the system each year for the lowest cost, and then keeping that performance level for the next year, and the next, until the point where replacement is the cost-effective next step.
When you take this long view of air conditioning performance, regular duct testing becomes a vital part. We recommend homeowners have this service done every 3 to 5 years—or right now if they haven’t done it already.
Just what does home performance mean? You may hear the term thrown around and not have understood the exact definition.
There is plenty to say about home performance, but a simple working definition is that it is how all aspects of a house work together as a single unit to achieve the goals of energy efficiency, comfort, and health. A house with air leaks that create winter drafts and poor air circulation would be an example of poor home performance. Unfortunately, many homes suffer from poor home performance in Howell, MI, and their owners don’t even realize it.
How often to you think about the condition of your home’s ductwork? Our guess: not often. This is almost by design. The ducts in a house hide from sight, traveling through spaces between walls and through the attic. Exposed ducts may look fine in commercial buildings with high ceilings, but that’s not the appearance you want for a cozy and pleasant home.
Residential ductwork does need some consideration however. Ducts that have suffered damage will lead to poor heating and cooling performance and rises in utility bills. Professional duct testing and sealing can solve this issue.
But there’s another concern with ducts to think about, and that’s keeping them clean.
You’ve had your air conditioner running steadily for a few months at this point, so you’ve already had a chance to see what your summer utility bills look like. Have they been noticeably higher this month? As we’ve pointed out before, this often indicates a repair need in the air conditioning system. We strongly recommend calling us for repairs as soon as possible: we’ll find out what’s wrong and fix it so that not only will your bills drop, but you’ll be in less danger of the air conditioner failing on you during a hot late summer day.
However, we may discover something outside of the AC unit itself is the source of those high bills. Another part of the HVAC system that frequently “steals” money from you without you realizing it is the ductwork.
