An air conditioner repair can take many forms, but one of the least understood is ductwork. A well built home is designed to keep out moisture, but what if there is moisture inside the home? Paying attention to details is essential in home construction and maintenance to prevent condensation in ducts and vents. These areas can cause as much damage to your home as a leak in the roof. Let’s take a closer look at ductwork condensation and what you can do to prevent it.
How Does Condensation Form?
Condensation occurs when warm, humid air comes into contact with a colder surface. You can see this phenomenon when you fill a glass with iced water, and the HVAC ductwork surfaces are no different. When the ducts are filled with colder air inside and humid air is outside, droplets of moisture will form.
How Does Condensation Affect a Home?
These moisture droplets can promote the growth of mildew and mold in your drywall and insulation. This can cause black water stains to bleed across your ceilings and walls. Eventually, this water damage will become worse, and this can cause structural parts of your home to rot and even collapse. If this wasn’t bad enough, the occupants of your home will be breathing in mold spores that can affect their health. This is particularly true if anyone in the home is suffering from allergies or a respiratory illness.
How Can Condensation be Prevented?
The ductwork in your home can be protected from the effects of condensation with a special ductwork insulation product. When your ductwork is well insulated, it will also improve the efficiency of your HVAC system at the same time. If you notice that you have a condensation problem with your ductwork contact an HVAC professional. They will be able to assess the condition of the ductwork and your existing insulation levels. In certain cases, there may be a good level on insulation on the majority of the ductwork, but there could be smaller gaps around collars, joins, and vents. Even these small gaps in insulation can allow droplets of moisture to accumulate and drip into your vent covers. Updating your insulation levels and making sure you have complete coverage for your ductwork will help to prevent condensation problems.
What if Adding Insulation Doesn’t Help?
If your ductwork is well insulated and you’re still experiencing condensations issues, this could be caused by too much humidity in your home. Most modern AC systems are designed to cool and dehumidify at the same time. However, if the AC system is too large for your home, it could be cooling the space down too quickly, and the system will not have enough time to dehumidify your home. Contact an HVAC professional and get them to carry out a home survey to diagnose the source of the problem.
If they need air con repairs in Perth, homeowners should get in touch with Air Spares, and we will be happy to help.