Arkansas HVACR NewsMagazine March 2020

b. Houses built in the county will not have any additional protection against a sorry duct job. These houses and homeowners suffer and / or benefit from th e “buyer beware” mentality. A philosophy that some in our legislature thinks is just fine. Duct leakage testing has real potential to help eliminate big duct leakage which will keep money in homeowner’s pockets; but, it is at a cost. Excuse the grammar but “Ain’t Nuttin’ Free”. A duct blaster will cost the contractor around $3,000 and doing a self-certification duct leakage test will take about 1 ½ man hours per system. (That is if the testers really know what they are doing and the installers sealed the supplies for testing as the duct was being installed. If not, it could take up to 3 man hours per system.) “Ya’ gotta’ factor that in the job.” If you hire a third party, estimates are from $150 to $300 depending on the number of systems and how much the contractor does to make the job ready for testing. Next month we’ll talk about the difference between self-certification and third party testing. Let me just give you a heads up. I’ll fight for the right to self - certify. It’s all I can do not to go into that issue now but we’ll cover it next month.

a duct leakage test? There are three reasons for the leakage. 1.We still have installers that don’t use mastic or mastic tape. Some don’t use any tape. Again, our industry is creating this call for leakage testing because too many in our industry are still not following code. 2. Inspectors are not catching the bad jobs . They are trying but it isn’t that easy. They want to work with us in the process by allowing insulation to be installed before the rough in. That is great for an installer and we appreciate it. On the other hand, the duct is covered and it isn’t easy to find the problems. Thus, some jobs slip through the cracks. 3. Homes built in the county outside the boundaries of code authority are never checked. It is a free for all. No amount of code will change this until counties begin code inspection. First, will a duct leakage test solve the problem? a. A test will almost assuredly solve the problem in municipalities where code inspection exists. I have heard of the rare example where duct slipped together so tightly that even without tape it did not leak. That is certainly the exception and as gravity pulls down on the duct, it will begin to pull apart and leak.