Today, we’ll cover the benefits of good ventilation and a few home ventilation strategies for humid climates like ours. Some of these strategies may surprise you, so we’ll explain how they work and why they’re worth considering for many Central Florida homeowners.

BENEFITS OF GOOD VENTILATION

Houses were once built loosely and designed to have ventilation throughout the structure. However, especially as A/C became commonplace, home construction became much tighter. So, harmful gases in our homes have an easier time staying in high concentrations within the structure.

Good ventilation allows us to move air into or out of the home despite the airtightness of the structure. That is important because we may want to get rid of moisture, carbon dioxide, or allergens in the home. Lots of furniture, paints, and flooring also off-gas VOCs, which negatively affect indoor air quality. On the other side of ventilation, we may want to bring fresh air into the home to dilute odors, viruses, and other unpleasant substances in the air.

Simply put, we can’t allow particulates to move into or out of the home without some sort of ventilation system. Without a good ventilation system, we are at higher risk of headaches, allergies, and asthma.

Plus, if you control the air you bring into your home, you reduce the risk of moisture forming on surfaces. In Florida, we tend to have high dew points, meaning that the air saturation is 100% at relatively high temperatures. When the air saturation reaches 100%, some of it needs to condense to a liquid, resulting in dew or condensation. That moisture can lead to fungal growth, which can have nasty odors and even harm your health.

Now, it’s worth noting that not all ventilation systems are good for homes in certain climate zones. Some of the ventilation systems that work well in other climates (such as energy recovery ventilation) are not as effective in Florida. So, we need to take a few special considerations when we think about home ventilation strategies for Central Florida’s humid environment.

BASIC STRATEGIES: THE BATH FAN AND KITCHEN EXHAUST

Most homes today have some of the most basic ventilation strategies on the market: bath fans and kitchen exhaust.

Bath fans and kitchen exhaust are forms of mechanical ventilation. They pull the house under negative pressure with respect to the outdoors, so moisture and odors can basically be sucked out of the building. As a result, most people use these forms of mechanical ventilation when bathing, cooking, or using the bathroom.

However, when you eject air from the house, it needs to be replaced somehow. Unfortunately, that air can come from cracks around your windows, door frames, vents, in the ceiling between the room and the attic. Attic air isn’t exactly fresh, and outdoor air isn’t being treated or dehumidified before it comes in. So, you can expel nasty particles from your home, but you can’t control the quality of the incoming air.

There has got to be a better way to bring fresh air into the home.

VENTILATING DEHUMIDIFIERS

In Florida, perhaps the most effective way of bringing in fresh air is through a ventilating dehumidifier.

In many (but not all) cases, a ventilating dehumidifier ties into the supply ductwork, brings in outdoor air AND incoming supply air, dehumidifies the air, and sends that air back into the supply duct. From there, the air travels through the supply duct and out to the supply grilles of the home. There are other configurations, especially for mini-split systems, but that tends to be one of the more effective ones for typical split A/C units and heat pumps. If you want to learn more about installing a whole-home dehumidifier to see if that may be right for you, you can check out THIS article.

Now, as amazing as ventilating dehumidifiers may sound, there’s one glaring issue with them:

When we bring in outdoor air, how are we supposed to isolate pollen, fungal spores, and other unwanted particles from the fresh air?

PAIRING FILTRATION WITH VENTILATING DEHUMIDIFIER

Perhaps the best home ventilation strategy we can recommend is pairing a ventilating dehumidifier with an appropriate filter. The filter alone can catch some of the unwanted particles from the outdoors, but it won’t do much to dehumidify that air. Similarly, the ventilating dehumidifier will reduce the outdoor air’s relative humidity, but it won’t separate out the bad particles.

So, one of the best policies is to combine those. Filters that go into a dehumidifier require regular changing, just like the filter in your A/C unit. That’s an additional maintenance step to consider, but it’s just a small price to pay for better indoor air quality.

SEALING CRACKS IN THE HOME

As said before, almost all new-construction homes are quite airtight. Their designs allow us to control the indoor temperature and humidity seamlessly, but they’re not meant to bring in unfiltered, uncontrolled outdoor air.

So, one of the best but least obvious ventilation strategies is to seal all ducts and cracks in the home. As a DIY project, you can caulk the cracks around windows and door frames. However, at Kalos, we offer to seal the cracks around vents and duct boots on service calls about “moldy ducts.”

To see our service in action, here is a video of our senior technician, Bert, diagnosing and treating an A/C system with “moldy ducts.” We have used this footage as a training video on the global HVAC training platform founded by Kalos President Bryan Orr, HVAC School.

Sealing cracks in the home gives us more control over the air we bring in. Instead of bringing in nasty attic air or unfiltered outdoor air, we can control the temperature, humidity, and cleanliness of the outdoor air we bring in via a ventilating dehumidifier.

The strategies mentioned in this article have their benefits, drawbacks, and special considerations. However, you can expect better indoor air quality when you use a combination of those strategies in your Central Florida home. Your sinuses and overall body may even feel the difference!

So, don’t forget the importance of the “V” in HVAC! There’s a lot more to a healthy, comfortable home than heating and cooling.

The post Home Ventilation in Central Florida appeared first on Kalos Services.

We’d be wise to pay extra attention to air changes, especially in places with high volumes of people, such as auditoriums and churches. Areas with high odors due to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and waste, such as warehouses and barns, are also areas of concern.

WHY VENTILATE?

Although ventilation doesn’t have an effect on heat gains and losses in a space, it’s a critical element of indoor comfort AND health. 

We consider ventilation in building design because some building codes require a certain amount of fresh air to circulate through commercial buildings. Proper ventilation also reduces odors and dilutes harmful contaminants, including bacteria and viruses. To learn more about indoor contaminants, check out our article on indoor air quality (IAQ).

Air changes are an indicator of the ventilation required for a commercial space. For example, a barn would require LOTS of ventilation due to the byproducts of animal activity. Those include increased CO₂ (from breathing), bacteria and fungi (from food and waste), and odors. So, it makes sense that a barn would require more frequent air circulation than a boiler room. 

But how do we determine how many air changes a building or room needs hourly? 

IT’S ALL ABOUT VOLUME

The amount of cubic space an object takes up is its volume. To find the volume of an object, you measure length x width x height. 

If you took a box that was 20 inches long, 10 inches wide, and 10 inches tall, you would find its volume by multiplying those dimensions.

 20 x 10 x 10 = 2,000

The box’s volume would be 2,000 cubic inches (in³).

To find out how much air can fit into a room, we’d need to know the dimensions of the room. If a room were 10 feet long, 10 feet wide, and 10 feet tall, we would multiply those values together:

10 x 10 x 10 = 1,000

So, the room would hold 1,000 cubic feet of air. So, how do we find out how many times we would replace all 1,000 cubic feet of air per hour?

HOW MUCH AIR DOES THE HVAC SYSTEM SUPPLY HOURLY?

When HVAC contractors determine how much airflow needs to go to a space, we rely on a value called CFM, cubic feet per minute. 

If the HVAC system were to supply 100 cubic feet of air per minute, you can find out the air volume delivered hourly by multiplying the CFM by 60 (minutes).

100 x 60 = 6,000

The HVAC system would be supplying 6,000 cubic feet of air per hour.

FITTING THE VOLUME INTO THE CUBIC FEET PER HOUR

Now that we know how much air our HVAC system supplies to that room hourly, we can use it and the room’s volume to determine how many air changes happen per hour.

We simply take the cubic feet per hour (6,000 ft³ per hour) and divide it by the room’s volume (1,000 ft³) to find out our air changes per hour.

6,000 / 1,000 = 6

So, a 10x10x10ft room with an HVAC system supplying air at a rate of 100 CFM would get 6 air changes per hour.

OTHER VENTILATION FACTORS TO CONSIDER

Many of the recommended ACH values are mere rules of thumb, as there are many factors to consider when designing a building.

For example, we already consider floor area in our volume equation. However, the floor could give off VOCs, which may be harmful to our health and should be diluted with air. Some finished wood floorings contain formaldehyde, which is a notorious VOC that can harm us.

The number of occupants in a space is also something to consider. When lots of people gather in a busy dining room to talk with each other and eat, they give off a lot of CO₂. That CO₂ can be harmful in large amounts, and it would be wise to use ventilation to dilute it. The same can be said of airborne viruses; during the COVID-19 pandemic, we learned that upgrades to building ventilation systems could slow the spread of SARS-COV-2 viruses indoors (CDC).

Moreover, if we already know of or can expect certain amounts of contaminants, we can factor those pieces of information into a ventilation strategy; the concentration of contaminants in a given area will surely affect the recommended air changes per hour. 

ACH AND AIRTIGHTNESS

We can also use air changes per hour to measure a building’s airtightness. All we need to do is conduct a blower door test.

In a blower door test, a contractor determines how leaky a building is by replacing an exterior door or window with a blower door. The blower door is then connected to a device that measures pressure, a manometer. There is a fan on the blower door that brings the building under negative pressure (usually 50 Pascals). That fan causes air to escape the building through cracks and other unintended openings.

When we measure ACH under the blower door test conditions, we call the resulting value ACH50. You simply take the CFM value calculated during the blower door test and multiply it by 60 (minutes). Then, you take that value and divide it by the volume of the tested space.

Higher ACH50 values indicate leakier buildings, and lower ACH50 values indicate tighter ones. In general, construction standards have evolved to make buildings tighter over time. So, it’s hardly a surprise that a commercial building built in 1950 would be leakier than a brand new structure.

So, this is all to say that air changes are important for several reasons. ACH is a design standard that maximizes the comfort and safety of commercial buildings AND a building performance staple; it can help us determine how much air infiltrates a structure.

The post Air Changes in Commercial Buildings appeared first on Kalos Services.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines IAQ as the following:

The air quality within and around buildings and structures, especially as it relates to the health and comfort of building occupants. 

IAQ used to be almost strictly related to building science. However, improving IAQ has recently become a goal of HVAC technicians and installers. As a result, we can offer our customers more solutions to keep their homes comfortable than ever before. Most homes already have some IAQ strategies in place, but we’re going to give a comprehensive review of indoor air quality and explain how certain equipment and add-ons may (or may not) help you live in a cleaner, healthier home.

WHAT ARE THE VILLAINS OF IAQ?

Our homes are full of pollutants, whether we want to acknowledge that fact or not. Indoor air quality refers to the cleanliness of the air, so a home with higher indoor air quality has greater pollution control.

One of the most common pollutants in the home is a group of small particles called VOCs (volatile organic compounds). Almost every home has some sort of VOCs, whether those VOCs come from detergents, cleaners, paints, flooring, or furniture.

You may have heard of formaldehyde before. If you ever dissected small animals in biology class, that’s what they were likely embalmed with. Believe it or not, formaldehyde is present all throughout your home! Whether it’s in your finished wood flooring or your couch’s synthetic upholstery, formaldehyde is in your home and reducing your IAQ. Pretty gross, right?

Other common and potentially harmful pollutants include carbon dioxide (CO2), ozone (O3), viruses, bacteria, and viruses. Some homes may also struggle with moisture problems, pet dander, odors, dust, and pollen in their home. You probably won’t see most of these, but they can still make you uncomfortable or even sick. 

One of the most dangerous IAQ villains is carbon monoxide (CO), especially if you have gas appliances in your home. Gas heaters, stoves, and fireplaces can produce CO if they’re not burning the gas completely. Unfortunately, CO is colorless, odorless, and potentially fatal. Watch out for unexplained flu symptoms, headaches, and dizziness, as those could be symptoms of CO poisoning.

BASIC IAQ CONTROL STRATEGIES

Most homes already have some basic means of controlling IAQ through pressure differentials and ventilation. 

For example, occupants can displace moisture when cooking, showering, or using the bathroom by using a localized vent or fan. Most bathrooms have fans that help displace moisture from the room by pulling that room under negative pressure. Then, new air comes in from any openings in the space. You may notice that bath fans also help get rid of odors; that’s because odor-causing particles get trapped in moisture, which then gets sucked out of the room.

We also use filters to improve IAQ in our homes. Pretty much all homes with central A/C units have filters that you need to replace monthly (or maybe more frequently if you have pets or plants in your home). Filters are rated for effectiveness on the MERV scale, so filters with higher MERV ratings are more effective at trapping small particles.

Of course, MERV ratings aren’t the end-all-be-all of filter effectiveness. For a filter to work, it needs to be the correct size for your HVAC system. On top of that, it’s certainly possible to use a filter that’s too restrictive, which will negatively impact your system airflow.

Finally, humidity control can help you keep your home from feeling muggy and laden with moisture. Bacteria and fungi also tend to flourish in high-humidity environments. So, home humidity control will benefit the health of you and your families. Most properly sized HVAC systems help with humidity control. However, if your home still feels humid, you may want to consider installing a dehumidifier.

OTHER ACCESSORIES

In addition to the basic strategies we just covered, some homeowners opt to include other IAQ accessories. However, these accessories have specific purposes and potential drawbacks. Before looking to purchase any of these add-ons, you may want to learn more about each product and refer to THIS article about IAQ questions to ask your contractor.

HEPA Filtration

HEPA stands for high-efficiency particle arrestance. These filters meet a US Department of Energy (DOE) standard that specifies a capture rate of 99.97% of particles sized at 0.3 microns. In other words, they have a near-100% capture rate for very small particles. They can be even more effective for smaller particles. Extremely small particles (<0.3 microns) move erratically, so the filter has a high rate of catching them via diffusion, as you can see in the bottom right corner of the image above.

HEPA filters rose to popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic because they can catch SARS-CoV-2 viruses (0.1 microns in size). However, they are not a perfect solution for everyone.

Remember when we talked about restrictive filters? HEPA filters are VERY restrictive and may significantly reduce airflow if your A/C system isn’t designed to work with a HEPA filter. HEPA bypasses are a partial solution that sends some of the air through a HEPA filter, but the design is something you’ll need to discuss with a contractor.

To learn more about HEPA filters, check out THIS article we wrote about them.

UV Lights

You may have heard that sunlight kills bacteria and fungi. While that’s a simple way of describing what happens, the ultraviolet (UV) rays from the sun can indeed kill bacteria and even deactivate viruses. So, if you put a UV light in an enclosed space, it will help kill bacteria and deactivate viruses on those surfaces.

However, UV lights don’t do much to purify the air flowing through your ducts. While UV lights can effectively kill bacterial and fungal spores on coil and blower surfaces in your air handler, they’re not very effective at neutralizing particles in the air.

Some homeowners may like the idea of having UV lights to keep their systems cleaner and free of buildup. Still, homeowners should know exactly what the benefits are before they decide to buy an IAQ accessory.

Oxidizers

We won’t get into the ultra-scientific parts explanations of oxidizers. You can read THIS HVAC School article if you’re interested in the details. Basically, oxidizers use unstable molecules to react with pollutants and organic matter in the air until those molecules stabilize.

Unfortunately, one of the most common oxidizing agents is ozone. Earlier, we mentioned that ozone is one of those “IAQ villains.” Ozone is very effective at breaking down odors, but it’s also excellent at breaking down the cells in our respiratory systems. If an oxidizer uses ozone, it may just do more harm than good, though everything is a calculated risk.

Some manufacturers have moved away from ozone and instead use ion-based oxidizers, including cold plasma and hydrogen peroxide. However, the jury is still out on the effectiveness of these oxidizers on a whole-home scale.

IAQ is becoming increasingly important for HVAC contractors. We are equipped to answer questions about IAQ, and we encourage our customers to be honest about their comfort levels in their homes. Remember: a good IAQ contractor caters their plans to your needs, answers questions honestly, and lets you know your options without pushing products you don’t need.

The post What is IAQ? appeared first on Kalos Services.

We throw the term “airflow” around a lot in the A/C industry. It sounds like a simple topic; you measure how well air flows through your system.

But when you think about how an A/C system works and interacts with your home, airflow can get a bit complicated. Are we talking about the blower fan speed? How about the air volume exiting the supply duct and entering the conditioned spaces of the home? Where does the velocity of the air moving through the ducts come in?

You can see that airflow is a deceptively tricky topic. As technicians, we understand it to be a measure of an A/C system’s ability to function properly within a structure, and we approach the subject holistically. As such, we use a few different types of metrics and tools for measuring airflow. This article will only scratch the surface of airflow, how we measure it, and its effects on comfort.

THREE AIRFLOW TYPES

First of all, we need to dispel the idea that “airflow” refers to one measurement or value. There are actually three types that we can measure: system, supply/return, and mechanical ventilation.

The first type, system airflow, refers to the immediate flow of air in the HVAC equipment. A/C units work because they exchange heat between the home, refrigerant (“Freon”), and outdoors. That heat exchange occurs in two components, each with fans that move air: the evaporator (indoor air handler) and condenser (outdoor unit). The refrigerant inside the evaporator absorbs heat from inside your home as air blows over the coil. The A/C unit then compresses that refrigerant and sends it to the outdoor condenser, where a fan blows over the coils and rejects that heat from the refrigerant to the outdoors.

The second type, supply/return airflow, refers to the flow of air entering and leaving the duct systems in the home. The supply duct brings conditioned air to the home by moving that air away from the air handler. The return duct takes in warm, moist air and moves it to the air handler for conditioning and moisture removal.

The final type, mechanical ventilation, refers to the fresh air intake. Fresh air intake may refer to economizers or makeup air units in the commercial sphere. In residential A/C units, fresh air intake may result from mechanical efforts to remove undesirable air from a space. These efforts include using bathroom exhaust vents and exhaust hoods in the kitchen. When you attempt to reject that air, the house naturally pulls fresh air through open windows, cracks, and other openings.

MEASUREMENTS: UNITS, TOOLS, AND METHODS

We use a few different units for measuring airflow. Some of these units directly measure the air volume moved over a period. Others measure conditions that can tell us a bit more about a system’s airflow.

We primarily measure air volume in cubic feet per minute (CFM). The CFM reading tells us how effectively your unit moves quantities of air through the ducts. We also sometimes measure air velocity, which is the speed at which air travels through the ducts. The speed at which air travels through the ductwork can impact CFM, but it also impacts other comfort concerns, such as duct noise and room temperature control. Air velocity also affects static pressure in the ducts.

Static pressure is one of our most important values when we measure airflow. The ductwork provides resistance to airflow, and static pressure is the pressure exerted on the ductwork by the air. We measure that static pressure with these tools called static pressure tips, and we hook them up to a manometer that displays the data.

Nowadays, technicians have access to a tool called a “TrueFlow Grid” that measures CFM directly. That grid also measures static pressure and pressure drops across the filter and coil. When technicians use one of these grids, they stick it where the filter usually goes, and it reports its readings to the technician’s smartphone via Bluetooth.

However, HVAC technicians can also perform more comprehensive tests that measure the whole home’s air pressure and leakage. One of these cases is when we perform a blower door test. In a blower door test, techs use a blower door to bring down the pressure in a house, and they use a manometer to measure pressure (typically in pounds per square inch or PSI). In doing so, the techs can get an idea of a home’s airtightness, which affects airflow. Air distribution and duct leakage also impact airflow and require pressure readings from manometers.

WHAT DOES MY AIRFLOW INDICATE?

When we measure airflow, our main goal is to look for restrictions. If the airflow is low or appears to be impeded by something, your comfort and your HVAC system’s lifespan and efficiency will suffer.

Several conditions may reduce airflow. Some of those conditions are easy to fix, and others are more complicated. The easiest fix is when your airflow is low because of a dirty filter. You can avoid that issue by replacing your air filter monthly whenever you get your power bill. (Of course, we recommend more frequent filter changes if you have pets and plants.) Debris near the outdoor unit is another common but easily fixable issue. You may also have recently had an oak tree shed lots of leaves right by your outdoor unit, obstructing it. In that case, you can remove the debris and see if the airflow improves.

However, the answer is not always that simple. In some cases, your A/C system may have fundamental design flaws that need to be addressed and rectified by a professional. For example, your outdoor unit may not have enough clearance between it and a wall or a garden. It becomes very difficult for the outdoor unit to blow hot air away if it’s blocked on one or multiple sides. In other cases, your ductwork may be leaky, collapsed, or disconnected. In some cases, you may not have enough return air vents in your home, or your ductwork may be oversized. When those are possible causes, it is best to call a technician to assess the A/C system and discuss possible solutions to fix your airflow.

The post What is Airflow? How Do We Measure it? appeared first on Kalos Services.

Despite these ducts’ widespread usage in Florida, they are controversial in the HVAC industry. Many technicians and contractors won’t touch them with a ten-foot pole. However, flex ducts are a staple in Floridian homes and commercial buildings alike.

In general, flex ducts are fine by themselves. They can be just as effective as sheet metal ducts and work exceptionally well in hot climates. The main problem comes from contractors cutting corners during installation.

So, how can you distinguish between good and bad flex duct installation? Today, we’re going to help you spot poorly installed ductwork. With this knowledge, you may be able to determine if your flex ducts are partially to blame for discomfort in your home.

GENERAL CHALLENGES OF DUCTS

Ducts can make or break your A/C system. Although ducts are essential for moving the conditioned and unconditioned air in your home, they decrease the efficiency of your A/C system through leaks and friction.

Flex ducts are not necessarily more susceptible to leaks or friction on the surface. However, improper installation will make leaks or friction a lot worse. 

Sheet metal ducts tend to be boxy, so it’s pretty easy to seal them up where one piece starts and another one ends. However, flex ducts are cylindrical and flexible. Even though they’re great for fitting into tight or oddly designed spaces, sealing them can be challenging. Consequently, incomplete or improper duct seals result in leaks. 

Friction in a standard duct is pretty constant. However, friction varies in flex ducts. The rate of friction in flex ducts has a lot to do with the ducts’ design. So, you can typically see sources of inefficiency due to friction with the naked eye. Friction in a flexible duct system will depend on duct extension, the duct’s support system, and the curves in the ductwork.

PROPER EXTENSION OF THE DUCTS

As we just said, friction is a major source of inefficiency in a duct system. Friction occurs when the duct’s sides slow down the air in the duct. Sometimes, the air slows down so much that it doesn’t make it to the other side.

The more compressed a flex duct is, the more folds there will be on the inside. So, there is a lot more friction for the air to overcome. As you can see in the graphic above, compressed ducts may result in up to FOUR TIMES the friction and air resistance as a fully extended duct!

So, the extension of the duct is one of the keys to proper installation and good airflow. Flex duct is compressible to fit in challenging areas, but the compressibility is easy to abuse. A lazy contractor may not bother cutting off any excess flex duct after connecting it from point A to point B. Instead, he may simply compress the duct.

Cutting off merely 2-6 feet of the duct to make room for a full extension can make a huge difference. That difference in friction will save home and business owners LOTS of money on their electric bills per year.

PROPER STRAPPING AND SUPPORT

Sometimes, ducts can’t just travel along an attic floor. Some flex ducts need proper supports and strapping, especially in commercial spaces.

Proper strapping and support are tricky, as the building codes may allow some undesirable practices. One of these practices is allowing the ducts to sag between straps/supports. Sagging affects the static pressure of the air inside the ducts, which decreases the airflow.

All flexible ducts will probably sag a little bit, but they should NOT create a U-shape. According to Energy Vanguard’s guide to duct installation, the best practice is to limit sagging to 0.5 inches per foot between supports. Of course, the contractor should follow the duct manufacturer’s recommendation for the spacing between supports, but the spacing should not exceed 4 feet. I understand that these numbers are small and may be difficult to see. However, you can definitely tell that something is wrong if you see a big U-shaped sag.

When it comes to strapping, the width of the straps that hold the ducts should not exceed 1.5 inches.

CURVES IN THE DUCTWORK

Remember when we discussed friction? Curves in the ductwork cause the duct lining to scrunch up, increasing friction AND the distance the air needs to travel. Those curved areas of ductwork are rather ineffective.

Since curves severely reduce the effectiveness of the duct, the goal should be to keep all curves short and tight or minimize curves altogether. When a curve is unavoidable, such as in the diagram above, you can minimize bad effects by keeping the ductwork extended and well supported. 

The duct on the right has poor support, is longer than the one on the left, and shows signs of compression. If your ducts look like the right example, then your A/C system may be working harder than it needs to.

PROPERLY SEALING FLEX DUCTS

Determining if your ducts have been sealed correctly is a challenge. You may be able to see rings of mastic on the outside of your duct. That should mean that the ducts are sealed, right?

Not necessarily. Building inspectors indeed look for mastic on the outside to determine if the duct system meets the building code requirements. However, mastic on the outside merely speeds up the formality and doesn’t indicate the effectiveness of the seal. Mastic on the outside is not necessarily effective because you can’t tell how secure the seal is on the inside.

While we do use mastic to seal the ducts, we do it on the INSIDE of the duct. In the image above, you can see Bert applying mastic to the inner lining of the duct under a customer’s trailer. Another process is to apply mastic to the collar and slide the inner lining over; this is the preferred method when the collar is easy to access (i.e., not under trailers).

CAN AN A/C CONTRACTOR HELP WITH MY FLEX DUCTS?

Yes!

At Kalos, we can perform tests that determine the leakiness of your ducts. If you have detached, leaky, or poorly constructed ducts, we can inspect your ducts and determine how to proceed.

Having a professional come out to examine your ducts and propose a solution can reduce your electric bill and make your comfort more consistent.

Get an inside look into Kalos’s training regimen by watching the video of a duct installation training meeting below. Kalos’s president, Bryan Orr, leads the meeting and makes sure our technicians are up to date on best practices at all times. To learn more about Kalos’s founders’ vision for promoting excellence in technicians, check out this post.

The post Are Your Flex Ducts Installed Properly? appeared first on Kalos Services.

Historic homes are a rare breed nowadays, especially in Central Florida. However, if you’ve ever lived or vacationed in an old home, you may have noticed the following: 

• The level of comfort can change throughout different parts of the house. 
• Your comfort level may change throughout different times of the year.

Those differences in comfort are primarily due to air leaks in the home. In leaky homes, lots of air can enter or escape the home through cracks and other small openings. 

When it comes to comfort, air leakage is on par with heating and cooling concerns. That is especially true of older historic homes. 

CONSTRUCTION IN THE PAST

You may have heard the phrase, “They make [x] like they used to.” You may even say it yourself when you’re frustrated with tools or appliances that break after a few uses! Well, that phrase is absolutely true of houses. 

People who built homes before and during the early 1900s had a different mindset than modern construction companies. Their main goal was to construct homes that could keep occupants out of the elements and provide warmth with wood-burning fireplaces. 

Many of these homes were also built before the invention of the air conditioner. So, the occupants had to open the windows if they wanted to cool off during the summer months. 

Builders also didn’t have access to the sheet goods of today. So, subfloor systems were plank-style. Exterior walls also had cross bracing in the walls instead of exterior wall sheathing for racking strength. Today’s exterior sheathing helps keep air leakage down since it covers the wall continuously with fewer cracks. You can see that quite easily if you compare the brick or stucco houses in many Central Florida neighborhoods with the shiplap exterior of the historic home pictured below. The latter would have more cracks.

STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY

The historic homes still standing today have good bones—structurally speaking. They were built when a 2×4 stud was actually 2” by 4” instead of the 1.5” by 3.5” studs we have today. 

Today, construction companies build homes very quickly to meet high demands for housing. Early homes built near the turn of the century were not rushed to meet the tight schedules and deadlines of today’s construction processes. So, builders, carpenters, and craftsmen had more time to perform their tasks. 

If you picture a historic home in your mind, it would likely consist of beautiful detailing on the outside. You’d also probably expect elegant craftsmanship throughout the interior: custom staircases, woodwork around fireplaces, dentil crown molding, etc. On the other hand, most modern homes are more “cookie-cutter” in nature; they have formulaic floor plans and look remarkably similar to other local homes. So, historic homes may be more attractive than modern homes in terms of uniqueness and “good bones.”

However, where historic homes excel in structural integrity and beauty, they tend to lack in performance when HVAC systems are installed. 

AIRTIGHTNESS DEMANDS AND TESTING

Until the past few decades, airtightness has not been a concern in residential buildings in the US. It is just now being required by code in some states. 

So, the people who built the historic homes we still have today weren’t thinking about airtightness. Even if some of them considered airtightness, they certainly didn’t have the knowledge we have today regarding where and how to seal cracks or openings in the home. 

In both historic and modern homes, most of the leaks in the home are near the ceiling. When you run electrical, mechanical, and plumbing components near the ceiling, you can expect a lack of airtightness in those areas. 

To determine the leakiness of a home, HVAC companies can perform a blower door test. In this test, the technicians place a large blower door over the frame of the front door of a home. The blower door has a flexible panel that fits over the doorway, a pressure gauge, and a large fan. That fan pulls the air out of the home and puts the house under negative pressure. Outdoor air can then infiltrate the home through the cracks. The mounted gauge measures the pressure differences between the home’s inside and outside to determine the leakiness.

RISKS OF LEAKY HOMES

Many historic homes still exist today and have not had any serious problems due to a lack of airtightness. However, there is still a reason why airtightness has been written into modern building codes. 

According to the US Department of Energy, leaky homes are at risk of the following:

• Higher energy consumption and costs due to air leakage
• Moisture and condensation problems
• Uncomfortable drafts
• Difficulties determining the appropriate degree of mechanical ventilation (such as bath fans)

COMMON FIXES FOR LEAKY HISTORIC HOMES

So, how can we make historic homes more comfortable without forsaking their charm?

As said earlier, a big part of controlling air leakage is about knowing where to seal. You can introduce modern building materials, like plywood and spray foam, to the home’s interior to seal the existing cracks.

However, you may have to interfere with the home’s structure in some areas. If the house is structurally sound, then that’s not a good idea. On top of that, you probably won’t get all of the sources of leakage, so sealing is only a partial solution.

Some experts recommend installing whole-home dehumidifiers to prevent mold growth and other products of moisture usage from the remaining leaks. Installing a dehumidifier also takes some of the latent heat load off your A/C system.

Once you address the leakage and humidity, it’s a good idea to redo the entire duct system and have an HVAC contractor perform load calculations to resize the HVAC unit. An oversized unit won’t control humidity as effectively as possible and will constantly start and stop, which raises your electricity bills and leads to inconsistent comfort.

So, this is all to say that historic homes provide questionable comfort by today’s standards. However, you have options for controlling that comfort. Most of those options are small fixer-upper tasks or HVAC renovations. By making some small adjustments to your home or having an expert update your HVAC system, you can keep your historic home’s character and feel comfortable inside it.

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