Poorly Installed Ductwork in Carrollwood: Why Your AC Cannot Keep Up

We got a call from a Carrollwood homeowner because her AC could not keep up with the heat. When we climbed into the attic, the problem was obvious, and it was not the AC unit at all.

What we found in this Carrollwood attic

Someone had recently installed new ductwork, but the work was done poorly. The plenum, the main box that distributes air off the system, had holes in it, and conditioned air was leaking straight into the attic instead of into the rooms. The duct joints were not sealed properly, they needed mastic to close them up, and the runs were not hung and supported the way they should be. In short, the homeowner paid for new ductwork and is now losing cooling and money to a hot attic every single month.

Why bad ductwork quietly costs you

You can have a perfectly good, correctly sized AC unit and still be uncomfortable if the duct system leaks. Every hole in the plenum and every unsealed joint dumps the air you paid to cool into your attic. That drives up your power bill, makes rooms uneven, and makes the system run longer and wear out faster. Sealing joints with mastic, properly supporting the runs, and closing up the plenum is what turns a struggling system into one that actually cools the house. We gave this homeowner a free estimate to correct it the right way.