Weatherization: Sealing Air Leaks In Floor Duct Systems
There are many ways to increase the energy efficiency of your manufactured home that will lower your utility bills and make your home more comfortable.
Although manufactured homes can be built that exceed strict energy efficiency targets, half of manufactured homes built in North Carolina have only minimum required insulation levels and costly furnaces instead of energy saving heat pumps.
Manufactured homes built to minimum standards are a few dollars less per month to buy, but the promise of affordability is lost when the home is found to be more expensive to heat and cool. It is especially important in these homes that the air ducts are properly sealed to avoid losing heated or cooled air to the outside through air leaks. Sealing air leaks in heating and cooling ducts will lower energy bills, reduce mold and other moisture problems and prevent insects and pests from getting into your home.
Because of the unique design of manufactured housing, weatherization techniques are not familiar to most homeowners and general contractors. Advanced Energy has produced a “how to” guide designed to help manufactured home owners identify and describe how to fix duct leaks in most manufactured homes.
Manufactured homes are built as single-wide or double-wide models. The duct systems are basically the same except that the double-wide home has a crossover duct. If you have a double wide but cannot see the crossover, one or two crossovers will be located within the floor cavity.
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The downloadable weatherization guide walks homeowners through repairs to their duct system to include:
• Sealing Air Leaks Under the Furnace
• Sealing Air Leaks At Inline Supply Riser
• Sealing Air Leaks At Branch Ducts
• Sealing Air Leaks At Crossover Connector
• Sealing Air Leaks At End Caps
• Securing And Sealing Flexible Crossover Duct
• Sealing Air Leaks At Perimeter Supply
• Sealing Bottom Plastic
Tools needed to complete these repairs can be found at most home improvement stores. For a bilingual copy of the weatherization guide, click on the icon below to download a PDF or stop by one of our our offices.