By: Bratkinson On: Sun Jul 12, 2009 4:34 pm
I'm in the process of re-doing my ductwork after a hurried installation this past February plugging it into my gas forced air system.
As for duct work, my thinking is that once it's in, it's in. It doesn't have to be super-duty "durable" or anything like that. So, the stuff from Home Depot, Lowes, or wherever is probably good enough. Ditto for my chimney pipe (and baro) to my 50+ year old brick chimney. Of course, if I were to be building a new chimney, I'd certainly want to go with something that's "lifetime guaranteed" or something like that. Outdoor wind, rain and snow can tear apart flimsy construction workmanship and/or materials faster than one would expect. But for indoor duct work, I'm thinking economy, as even if I decide to re-do it later on, I should be able to reuse a lot of it and for a very small cost, add-on/replace what's needed.
As for duct fans, however, I'm leaning more on the 'quality/durable' side of the scale. I wouldn't want a duct fan (or a combustion fan, either, for that matter) to fail in the middle of the night or while I'm at work and potentially fill the house with CO gas or worse, cause a fire. I'm still thinking about how to make a 'system shutdown' device if the room temperature gets too high (fire?) or one of the fans seizes up. That's why I didn't use the duct fan from Home-Depot...it looks really cheap...although one of my co-workers uses one and thinks it's great! I'm looking more at a number of online sites that offer what appears to be good quality duct fans in the $30-40 range. I still have a couple of months to decide. Certainly, one of my concerns is sound levels, too. My Alaska Channing already has 2 fans on it and adding perhaps 2 more in the duct work might make the noise too much, even though it's in the basement! Even though I'm hard of hearing, I still want to be able to hear my TV!!
