Al Carrell: You may already be aware that one of the most common places to lose energy is through gas where the connections are made in your heating and air conditioning duct system. Energy consultant Steve Easley has a suggestion for making a tightly sealed connection. And you're going to show us how to do that properly.
Steve Easley: That's right. As a matter of fact, this is a typical connection in an average home and about 20 to 30 cents out of every dollar that people spend on heating and cooling is lost through leaks in duct works, just like right here. So what we're going to do is demonstrate how a heating contractor can actually solve those problems by using mastic sealants and some duct ties to get a good tight solid connection that doesn't leak.
A.C.: Let's do it.
S.E.: So what we do is we take some mastic sealant and we just kind of brush that on there. Put the mastic on there, a liberal application of mastic sealant.
A.C.: Now we need to slip this on there. Do we want to slide it all the way down Steve?
S.E.: Absolutely. Let's slide that all the way over. Real important that the inner lining of this duct work actually goes all the way up against the edge of this boot.
A.C.: Like it is right now.
S.E.: Absolutely. It's not a bad idea to put some more mastic on there. Don't be afraid to use a liberal coating of this mastic sealant. Now this product is really neat in the fact that it's a elastameric, which basically means that it actually will expand and contract with the duct work, so over time it won't crack or lose it's seal. This is called a flexible duct tie and what we're going to do is we're going to wrap this around the inner lining of the duct and then push this through like this and pull it tight. We're going to take our clamping tool and you always want to use one of these because this makes sure it's going to be plenty good and tight. And you pull it up good and tight and then use this device here that snaps it off. The next we'll do is we'll pull that insulation over the top of the duct, pull the foil liner over that. In hot attics it's always a great idea to use a foil covered insulation flex duct because it'll reflect about 90% of the heat from the hot summer sun that radiates from the roof deck in the attic. Then we'll use another flexible duct tie. Color really doesn't matter. They come in different colors. Wrap this around the foil insulation. Make sure and push down good on the boot. Pull it up tight. What you have is a good solid connection that's not going to come loose in a few years.
A.C.: And that means you're going to save money year after year.
Episode 48 1996 - 97 Season
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