HVAC Duct Leakage Guarantee

In a typical home, the average HVAC duct leakage is around 25%. To qualify as an ENERGY STAR home that number must drop to 10% or less. The American Lung Association's Health House program requires 7% or less.  To be an Insight Home, the HVAC duct leakage must be 3% or less.  Why is this so important?   Well, if on a typical house you have a 4 ton air conditioner, and 25% of that air is venting into the attic or crawl space, That conditioned air is now lost. This causes two problems?

1. You just lost 25% of the air you just conditioned.

2. You have to now get 25% of that air back; retrieving it through the walls, windows and doors.

The air pulled in through the wall, windows and doors directly from outside is dirty, humid and unconditioned.  Think of all of the energy dollars you have just lost.  In a typical home, up to a QUARTER of the air you paid to have conditioned is now wasted and gone. That is a significant number! In addition to the present cost, think about how much harder your HVAC equipment has to work to try and make up for this loss-which in turn will most likely cause your HVAC equipment to fail at a more rapid rate.

Minimal duct leakage is one of the key features that make an Insight Home so energy efficient. Insight guarantees a HERS score of 56 or less (see HERS Score). Duct leakage alone can detrimentally change the HERS rating of a home by as much as10 points.  Those 10 points equate to 10% loss of savings on your utility bill (not just the heating and air costs). You can imagine how critically this affects JUST the heating and air percentage of your energy usage.