A Residential Duct Leakage Case Study on 'Good Cents' Homes

Abstract

The “Good Cents” program has been adopted by many cities across the United States and has encouraged builders to employ aggressive energy conservation building techniques in residential applications. The program is well established and has been recognized for the added value it brings to homeowners. The primary energy using system in a residence is the heating and cooling system and in the hot and humid Southeast Texas climate, cooling is the predominant mode of operation for the HVAC system. This makes the system particularly susceptible to degraded performance if there are leaks in the air distribution system. Nine Good Cents homes in the College Station, Texas area were chosen for a study to determine the extent of HVAC air distribution leakage in the HVAC system. It was found that all the homes had significant measured leakage for the return-air side of the system. Houses with vertical sheet-rock lined plenums had significantly higher rates of return air leakage than homes with ducted returns.