Seal the ductwork,
not just the shell.
A big share of the heat and cooling your system makes can leak out of the duct runs before it ever reaches the room. I now seal ducts from the inside with Aeroseal, the duct side of the same measured aerosol process I use on the building envelope. Your system gets tested, sealed, and tested again, so you watch the leakage drop on a real number.
You'll talk to the owner who runs every seal, usually same day. Not a call center.
- Sealed from the inside
- Measured before and after
- Done in a day
Why duct leakage quietly costs you.
Ductwork is joined, taped and sometimes hand-sealed, then buried in walls, floors and ceilings where nobody can reach it again. The seams that were missed leak conditioned air into attics and crawlspaces for the life of the home. You pay to heat and cool space you never live in, some rooms never get comfortable, and the system runs longer trying to make up for it.
Hand-sealing the duct you can see leaves the buried joints untouched. Aeroseal works from the inside out, so it reaches the seams a caulk gun never will, then proves the result with a before-and-after leakage number on your own system.
Six things tighter ducts change.
Even room temperatures
Leaky supplies and returns starve the far rooms. Sealing the runs helps the air actually reach the registers it was sized for, so the bonus room over the garage stops running cold.
Lower run-time and bills
Air that leaks into an attic is air you paid to condition and never used. Keeping it in the duct path means the system cycles less to hold the temperature you set. Savings vary by home and how you run it.
Less dust and allergens
Return-side leaks pull dust, insulation fibre and attic air into the system and back out your vents. Tightening the ducts cuts a lot of that pickup at the source.
Quieter, balanced airflow
A sealed, balanced duct system moves air with less whistle and less pressure imbalance, so interior doors stop pulling shut and rooms hold pressure more evenly.
Easier on the equipment
Sealed ducts let a furnace or heat pump run nearer the static pressure it was designed for, instead of fighting leaks. That is easier on the equipment over the years.
New build or existing home
Best access is during the build, before the ducts are closed in. Lived-in homes are routine too: I seal through the registers with the system isolated, and you use the house that evening.
Test, seal, test again. In a day.
- 01
Test the system
I isolate the duct system and run a duct-leakage test to measure exactly how much air is escaping before we start. That reading is your baseline.
- 02
Mask and protect
Registers, the furnace and the coil are sealed off so the aerosol stays inside the duct runs and nowhere else in the home.
- 03
Seal from the inside
The Aeroseal aerosol is introduced into the pressurized ducts. The particles stay airborne until they reach a leak, then build up across the gap and close it from the inside.
- 04
Measure and certify
I run the leakage test again so you see the before-and-after drop on a real number, and you leave with a report documenting the sealed result.
Sealing the whole build? The envelope side (AeroBarrier) hits your blower-door target and the FortisBC Step Code rebates. Most homes do best with both.
Envelope air sealing →Priced by the system, not guessed.
Duct sealing depends on the size of the home, the number of zones and how the runs are laid out, so I price it per system once I have scoped the job. No mystery quote, no national-franchise markup. Tell me the project and I will give you a real number.
Duct sealing questions
How is this different from sealing my walls?
The envelope seal (AeroBarrier) tightens the shell of the house so outside air stays out. Duct sealing (Aeroseal) tightens the ductwork inside the house so the air your furnace or heat pump makes actually reaches the rooms. Different leaks, same measured aerosol approach. Plenty of homes benefit from both.
Can you do my existing home, or only new builds?
Both. New construction has the best access, before the ducts are closed in. For a lived-in home I seal through the registers with the equipment isolated, usually in a day, and you keep using the house that evening.
Is the sealant safe?
It is a water-based sealant tested for indoor use, applied with the living space masked off from the duct runs. Once it has cured the system runs normally. I will walk you through the product data sheet before we start.
How long does it take?
A typical single-family system is tested, sealed and re-tested in a day. Larger or multi-zone systems can take longer, and I will tell you when I scope the job.
Will it fix a room that is always too hot or too cold?
Often it helps, because a lot of those rooms are starved by duct leakage upstream. It is not a substitute for a system that is undersized or badly laid out, so I measure first and tell you straight whether sealing will move the needle for that room.
Are there rebates for duct sealing?
Programs change, and most BC rebates focus on heating equipment and the building envelope rather than duct sealing on its own. I will point you to what is current when we scope the job, and I never bundle an unverified rebate into a quote.