Portal of Forgotten Ducts
Welcome to the Portal of Bad Ductwork
December 2025 Weathertop
Customer stated that a brand new furnace and heat pump were installed in the basement. I discovered something quite nefarious in the crawlspace.
Two ducts in the crawlspace were victims of either cats, raccoons, or perhaps bears. It was hard to gather what type of calamity befell them, as all that was left of these once proud ducts was a deflated pile of mangled wire.
These ducts were beyond my skill to heal; I felt like Aragorn observing Frodo’s magical knife wound at Weathertop. But stand idle and wait for the magical healing power of the elves I could not, for darkness had fallen in the land of Middle Earth, and my chickens required urgent attention in Floyd.
It’s a shame the HVAC company didn’t spend five seconds looking at the ductwork on what was presumably a $25,000 job. But if people did their jobs, I literally would not have one. I don’t know if I should lament or celebrate this fact of life.
A week or two later I was having nightmares about these ducts, so I reached out to the homeowner to see if I could have the honor of replacing them. I got the new ducts off the ground with some old ratchet straps and a dog leash I probably was never going to use. This is the benefit of having things laying around your car. No one ever highlights the benefits of being disorganized. The homeowner reported that air was flowing to the registers once more!
December 2025 Radford Job
Customer stated that a brand new air handler in the attic was recently installed. Upon inspection, neither the return duct nor the supply duct were ever connected to the air handler. Air handler was sucking in unconditioned attic air and blowing it back in the attic.
When we went to reconnect the return to the air handler, we realized that the hole was actually never large enough to fit the duct. So, we left the attic, found some tin snips in the element, and return to widen the hole. At the end, we spread mastic inside and outside of the return joint.
On the supply end, we did what we could to tape and mastic the junction, while alerting the homeowner that both of these repairs were beyond the scope of this free program.
The new return, installed correctly with best practice methods. Not even an earthquake could disconnect it now.
February 2025 Blacksburg Job
Customer stated that the family was having a hard time heating the upstairs bedrooms. Upon inspection, neither the return nor the supply were connected to the air handler by any stretch of the imagination. This was a Blacksburg job from the early 2000s, so it had been like this for about two decades.
I was able to seal up the return with what one might consider an excessive amount of HVAC tape. On top of the tape seams, I coated everything with an equally excessive amount of mastic, just to be sure it could not leak.
The supply side was not as straightforward… I did what I could. There comes a time when work is done so poorly it must be redone.
I told the customer that this type of repair job was outside the scope of this free program.
