Where's My Air?

Something seemed a bit off with our ventilation system...we weren't suffocating, but it definitely felt like we were missing some air.  

A trip to the attic revealed the problem...the duct work was not "working"! As I've mentioned before our house is over 100 years old.  Although this particular duct work is not that old, it sure seemed it! It was literally just crumbling at the joints.  

We used our multi-tool  (from Harbor Freight) to cut out the bad duct work!   

At this point we needed to decide if we should repair the problem area or replace it all.  After a quick budget check we decided it made the most sense to replace all the duct work (in the attic) with new more energy efficient materials. 

  

After some measuring and shopping we were ready to install our new duct work.







I think my favorite part of this project was opening the boxes of new duct work.  They just "popped" right out, like a slinky! The trickiest part of the project was figuring out lengths and connectors.  A crimped connector versus an elbow versus a tee...VERY complicated.  I suggest if you ever tackle a project like this to draw out your plans, measure twice and think through all your materials, including whether or not you need a transition between varying duct thicknesses.  

We changed the layout a bit to use the least amount of materials. I was pleased to see the new amount of storage space I now have too! 

This was a challenging project but in the end the lessons learned always make it worth doing ourselves!  For under $300 we bought ourselves decades of air flow!