Video: Assessing Your Furnace Ducts

MENLO PARK — Host, Sarah Rutan: If your home’s furnace ducts are more than 30 years old, it may be time to consider having them replaced. Today we’re in Menlo Park with Diamond Certified Expert Contributor Mike Rebholtz of Alternative Heating & Air Conditioning Solutions to learn more.

Diamond Certified Expert Contributor, Mike Rebholtz: When you’re thinking about getting your furnace replaced, there’s a new mandate out now, it’s a new Title 24 requirement throughout the whole Peninsula in here. It’s a HERS test, it’s a duct test that’s required where you have to have less than 15 percent leakage. If your home is over 30 years old, there’s a good probability that your duct will need to be replaced. It won’t pass the duct test.

You can look at your ductwork. If it’s in the crawl space, you’ll see vents on the floor. If it’s in the attic, you’ll see the registers in the ceiling. So, to inspect it, see if you got black rings on, like, yellow or orange insulation. If it’s tin ductwork, it may have asbestos, it will be white, and inside it’s going to be shiny or on the outside, like I say, could have some rust on it. But an expert will know right off what it is.

It’s expensive to do this duct replacement initially because you may have asbestos removal, but the indoor air quality will improve 100 percent. You won’t have any more of this dust or debris in there. Also your utility bills will drop 20 to 30 percent. It’s just not about replacing your furnace, it’s about replacing the airflow. We can also modify the airflow at doing your duct replacement. We get better airflow to your living room, maybe to a master bedroom, and this is all done with a duct replacement.

Host, Sarah Rutan: To learn more from local top-rated companies, visit our Diamond Certified Expert Reports at experts.diamondcertified.org.