Job completed for Erik I.

Completion date: March 8, 2019

Location: Charlottesville, VA

Why did the customer contact us?

Erik noticed wet, falling drywall in the ceiling of his foyer, between the first and second levels during the summer months. The culprit was easy to identify as wet ducts - where the water in the hot humid summer air condensed on the cold metal of the ducts. Solving the question of how this happens in between to conditioned levels of the home was a more challenging problem.

Solutions provided:

We began with a whole house blower door test and infrared camera review. The objective was less to discover the total air leakage of the house but to find the pathway of the air from outdoors to in-between to finished levels of Erik's home.

We were able to identify several spaces in the attic floor that we open to the walls walls and piping cavities below. Combined with the open truss construction of the floor joists, we believe that the air simply moved down the walls until it came into contact with the cold ducts. So the air simply upheld basic physics - hot moves to cold, higher humidity moves to lower humidity, i.e. hot, humid summer air seeks out cold ducts!

We worked with Erik and an insulation company to seal the attic floor and re-insulate the attic. We cannot confirm if this has solved the problem fully - plenty of rain has fallen but we have not hit cooling season. We will continue to work with Erik to limit air leakage and give he and his family a dry ceiling.

Separately we replaced the failing heat pump with a higher efficiency system that brings his equipment back under manufacturer warranty and operates properly. We also added a high efficiency media filter to provide better air filtration.