Duct Sealing in Bodega Bay, CA

Rooms that never get warm, and a bill that keeps climbing

One room stays cold. The register barely breathes. Usually the duct is still connected somewhere, just not where it matters. In pre-1970 homes here, galvanized sheet metal trunk-and-branch runs through the crawlspace under raised foundations. Joints were taped once. The original wrap is often deteriorating. Boots pull loose from the subfloor and dump conditioned air under the house. You pay to heat the crawl dirt.

Attic systems fail differently. Insulated flex duct from 1980s tract construction sags between supports and kinks at turns. Storage boxes compress runs flat. Retrofit ducting squeezed into old farmhouses and additions gets forced around framing it was never sized for. Airflow dies before the leak does.

Sealing starts at the return, not the supply. Undersized or leaking return plenums and filter slots pull attic and crawlspace air straight into the supply side. That is how rodent debris, fine wildfire ash and oak pollen reach your bedrooms. Mastic on plenum seams and a tight filter slot change more than foil tape on branch joints.

Near the coast, cold supply duct sweats. Condensation and mold on duct exterior is a humidity problem first. Seal it, insulate it, then fix the moisture source. Skip that step and the callback comes anyway.