Duct sealing and renovations are currently in high demand within the marketplace.
were installing galvanized metal to carry the warm air to rooms throughout the house under pressure. For the first time, we could duct across the ceiling, under a beam and back up again. And for the most part, it worked!
deliver the right amount of air it didn’t matter because the exposed heat runs in the open basement would warm the entire floor any way! With the right amount of “Yuckwork,” we could move heat almost anywhere.
There will be a lot of money pouring into cleaning up our years of poorly installed ductwork and creating a masterpiece of high efficiency air moving comfort systems. New solutions If we put a box on top of a box (the furnace) and then ran arms of perimeter pipe, we were warm anywhere. If the register didn’t
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This newfound solution took off and manufactures were racing for market share by introducing better ways of extracting heat out of the flames or product of combustion.
As popularity rose, manufacturers found themselves competing based on price. By the 1970s, energy was a hot topic as natural gas rose to four cents per cubic metre. All of a sudden, energy bills were becoming a major consumer of household incomes. The race was on to save energy. The original systems were turning a dollars’ worth of fuel into 40 cents worth of heat. Manufacturers tried slowing down the passage of heat and extracting as much energy out of a dollar as they could. Furnaces with an efficiency rating of 60 per cent became the baseline and then slowly energy efficiency creeped up to 80 per cent as the new norm. By 1979, the 90 per cent energy efficient furnace was born. People were impressed with the heating-capability and the costs associated with maintaining a comfortable home. Until the emergence of the recreation room. With mechanical room advances, it now made perfect sense to utilize the whole footprint of the home for family entertainment areas. By closing in walls and ceilings and adding some “Yuckwork” to the cellar, we now had Continued on page 43
April 2021 – Plumbing & HVAC
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