Duct Sealing in Los Gatos, CA

Duct sealing in Los Gatos homes

One room never gets cold. The attic feels conditioned. Dust returns a week after cleaning. Those three symptoms usually point to the same place: open seams and disconnected boots. In 1950s-70s galvanized trunk and round branch systems, the cloth tape at joints has gone brittle and powdery. It lets go in sheets. On 1980s-2000s flex, the inner liner slips off the boot collar and the run dumps air straight into the attic.

Sealing starts with finding the leaks, not taping everything. We open registers, check boot connections at the ceiling and floor, and follow trunk seams. Crawlspace runs under raised foundations in older downtown and foothill houses get inspected for sag, crush and wet insulation. Mastic goes on the joint, not tape. Flex gets re-collared with a drawband, then the outer jacket and vapor barrier are closed separately.

Two things stop the work. Pre-1975 plenums may carry asbestos-containing tape, which we leave alone and refer out. And rodent-contaminated runs need cleaning or replacement first; sealing droppings inside a duct just hides them.

Sealing will not fix an undersized single central return. That ranch-tract problem needs added return capacity, and we will say so rather than tape around it.