3 Ways Excess Humidity Can Enter Your Home

The summer months are known for their high humidity, which can feel great after the long, dry, and cold winter months. The downside? All this moisture could be entering your home and damaging it from the inside out. And when there’s excess humidity in the house, there’s a higher risk of mold, mildew, and other issues that can impact your indoor air quality and airflow.

The main culprit for moisture in your house is faulty ductwork. Gaps and holes in your ductwork allow humidity, rain, and fog to find their way into your air system. To avoid the issues that excess moisture in your house can cause, it’s important for homeowners to stay on top of ductwork maintenance and have it reviewed by a professional at least once a year.

The Problem with Faulty Ductwork

Your duct system connects your entire house. It’s responsible for delivering the cool, refreshing air from the AC to the many rooms within your home. And when something is wrong with the ductwork, it affects your entire house.

Unfortunately, the solution isn’t as easy as airing out the house with the windows wide open and fans on blast. Faulty ductwork requires repairs; otherwise, mold and mildew can quickly grow within the ducts and become present in the air you breathe. This impacts indoor air quality, can lead to serious respiratory illnesses, and trigger asthma and allergies. Over time, this can also harm your home’s structural integrity, causing serious damage and expensive repairs down the road.

Finding—and Stopping—Humidity from Entering Your Home

In order to address your humidity issues, you first have to know where to look. Here are three main ways humidity finds a way into your house:

• Improperly Installed or Connected Ductwork. When your ductwork isn’t installed correctly or is connected to the wrong areas of your home, it pulls air from the wrong places. This brings in the “bad” stuff. Because ducts work on a system of supply and return, the supply and return sides must be connected correctly to deliver clean, moisture-free air. Improperly installed or connected duct systems could be supplying poor air into your home by reaching into crawlspaces and attics. These cramped, uninsulated areas are also easily affected by humidity and mold growth. Worse, these spaces are more likely to be home to insects, rodents, and wood rot.
• Air and Duct Leakage. When air that is intended for your home leaks out, it significantly reduces the amount of clean air you need to supply your entire house. This leads to a negative imbalance in pressure that causes your home to pull air from bad sources. This air could come from the garage, attic and even the crawlspace. Again, these areas are more likely to contain excess moisture, mold and other pollutants you do not want in your air.
• Excess Moisture in Ductwork. If you have an old, damaged or poorly functioning duct system, then you likely have little control over the amount of moisture that’s entering your home. Your system could be pulling in damp, humid air from outside. Holes and gaps could also be allowing rainwater into your vents. All this moisture leads to mold and mildew growth, which then enters your breathing air.

Expert Duct Sealing Services

We don’t expect our customers to crawl through their ductwork to identify the issues that cause humidity in their homes. That’s why we’re here! The best way to deal with leaking ducts is by sealing and insulating them. This process can eliminate moisture and mold growth and create a strong, sealed system for your cooled air to travel through.

Bradley Mechanical uses patented Aeroseal technology to create a long-lasting solution. The Aeroseal we use is an airborne sealant that can close all the tiny holes and leaks in your ducts. This seal forms an air-tight barrier along the ductwork that keeps cool air from escaping and humid air and other pollutants from entering. It will also kill any existing mold and mildew and create a bright white finish in your air ducts.

Bradley Mechanical can help you restore the health of your home and keep humidity out. Your health and comfort are important to us. For over 50 years, we have provided our local community with prompt and professional ductwork services. From fabricating and installing custom ductwork to repairing damaged vents to removing mold buildup—our team of professional HVAC technicians can help.

Give us a call today to make an investment in your home performance and indoor air quality.