Donald Hester
Washington State Licensed Home Inspector #647
WSDA#80050
InterNachi Member #NACHI10022401
509-670-9572
Contact Us
Washington State Licensed Home Inspector #647
WSDA#80050
InterNachi Member #NACHI10022401
509-670-9572
Contact Us
Blogs
Warm Feet, Cool Heads and Duct Tape- Cle Elum and Leavenworth Home Inspection
Submitted by DonHester on Wed, 03/21/2012 - 07:11.Warm Feet, Cool Heads and Duct Tape- Cle Elum and Leavenworth Home Inspection
We like walking around having our floors warm. Usually we achieve this by having a radiant floor system that can produce nice warmth at the toe level.
During a recent home inspection I was doing my normal evaluating of the heating and air conditioning system and noticed that a heat register in a bedroom was not producing much air flow (well almost none at all).
I pull the register cover and take a peak and I see the black abyss of the crawlspace below.
When I get to my last stop of the home inspection, the crawlspace, I find the duct lying on the ground nicely conditioning the crawlspace.
As we can see from this picture once we again the use of “Duct Tape” on a duct. Duct tape is not an approved material for use on duct for this very reason.
Over time the glues dried out from the heat being produced by the HVAC system and lose their ability to bind.
What most do not know that duct tape was developed during World War II for emergency repairs in the field and was colored green. It was also used in the movie industry and was referred to as “Gaffer’s Tape”.
Post WWII the HVAC folks saw this as a great material to use as a way to seal ducts. Since ducts were silver the tape color changed to silver to match the ducts and thus “Duct Tape” was born.
Duct tape may have saved the astronauts of Apollo 13 but it will not save your heating system from failure or leakage.
Researchers tested duct tape and other methods such as mastics, gooey sealants that are painted on and allowed to harden and only duct tape failed. (I notice this was not included in the 365 day calendar for duct tape ; )
“But I'm an adventurer. I like invention, I like discovery.”
Karlheinz Stockhausen
NCW Home Inspections, LLC is a Licensed Washington State Home Inspection service located in Wenatchee Washington serving Chelan County, Douglas County, Kittitas County, Okanogan County and Grant County Washington and the cities of Wenatchee, Leavenworth, Cashmere, Orville, Cle Elum, East Wenatchee, Quincy and many more…
Your Wenatchee and Chelan Professional Home and Structural Pest Inspection Service
509-670-9572 or on the web atwww.ncwhomeinspections.com
