Damaged Duct Repair and Duct Replacement Improves The Efficiency Of Your System and The Health Of Your Home

An example of burned plastic vent pipe

One of the most common services our company provides is Damaged Duct Replacement or Duct Repair in Vancouver Washington, Portland Oregon, and of course surrounding areas. Metal ducting can become rusted, oxidized, stepped on or crushed, damaged by animals or nesting, or come apart from poor craftsmanship. Flexible duct is very often animal damaged, cats living in it, rats, or lots of mice. They tear up the inner liner, which allows insulation particles to be carried into the homes breathable air. Water damage from flood, poor drainage, or plumbing issues is also a very common reason for needing duct repair or duct replacement. Water damage or any moisture introduced into the system will cause health issues due to rapid mold growth. Hot air from the furnace quickly creates bacteria & mold in wet duct work. Poor craftsmanship often results in ducting coming apart at the seams or lying on the ground under the house(which allows easier access for rodents & bugs) instead of strapped up neatly.

Plastic or other incorrect venting materials used for Dryer vents can result in home fires, or at best, your clothes won’t dry as fast.  Duct Replacement can improve your energy efficiency and reduce your carbon footprint.

Often people don’t know the extent of their damage (and thus the severity of their need for duct replacement). A common phone call is “One or more of my heat registers in the floor is no longer blowing”. We have a minimum service charge to inspect the ductwork, which includes any minor duct repair, plus materials. If we find that we do need to do a duct replacement, we treat the first call as a free bid. We work off simple flat rates. This includes all new materials, everything sealed with UL Listed Mastic Sealant up to current code and disposal of all old duct work. Damaged duct replacement is not something to ignore, here in the Great Northwest our high moisture levels speed up the mold & bacteria growth which the heating system quickly spreads throughout your home.

Although we will replace the damaged duct work with galvanized metal heating duct if the customer requests it, typically our replacements are done with R8 flexible ducting. This product comes wrapped in R8 valued insulation, with a plastic Visqueen outer liner covering the raw insulation. The plastic inner liner keeps the insulation out of the breathable home air, and is formed in a spiral configuration improving air flow. Whenever we perform an inspection for Damaged Duct Replacement we want to make sure the problem doesn’t reoccur. If there was a plumbing issue that caused the damage, please let us know and verify that the issue has been remedied before we begin any work on your home. If animals were entering the crawl space of your home thru missing foundation vent screening, we can install new screening as part of our services.

Gaining Headroom with Duct Replacement

An increasingly popular service we provide is “Gaining Headroom”. Especially in Portland Oregon, over half of the homes have basements with exposed duct work. Often the basement is used only for storage or a cave like laundry room. Around 7 foot ceiling height is very common in this area. A 12″ round heating duct, especially if not strapped tightly to the ceiling, will make people have to duck to enter the space. Large duct systems can make the basement unusable! We just finished a project where we were able to re-route all of the duct work that hung low and crossed the entry ways and centers of the rooms to flat duct or along existing beams, freeing up 1000sq ft of our customers home. Another recent project had a 14″ round duct that ran right down the center of a room with 7 foot ceilings. We converted the round duct to 2 inch wide rectangular duct , gaining 12 inches of headroom, and our customer turned it into a billiards room with a nice pool table.