Are Your Air Ducts Making You Sick?
What you need to know about the underslab cardboard sonotube in your West Texas home.
Sonotube is a 5"-22" diameter cardboard tube with a paper-thin aluminum lining the inside. It was originally used as a form for concrete piers. Prior to the mid 1950's, builders used sonotube as a form to build the piers that supported “pier & beam” home’s wooden sub-flooring. Beginning in the mid 50's to reduce the cost of building a new home, builders were asked to build homes with concrete slab floors and counter-flow central air conditioning systems, This meant either the supply air ducts or the return air ducts were buried under the slab along with the home’s water supply lines and plumbing drain lines.
Challenged to find a readily available material to use for conducting air underneath a home, builders in West Texas decided to utilize that same cardboard sonotube; however instead of pouring concrete inside it, they poured concrete around the outside of the paper cardboard tube and connecting galvanized flex joints. At the time it seemed like a great idea because sonotube was readily available, cheap, and solved the current problem of underground air conduction.
Fast forward 30, 40, 50, and now 60 years and consider the current condition of cardboard sonotube buried underground: (1) Cardboard subjected to seasonally varying levels of soil moisture, as well as the moisture from heavily watered flower beds next to the home’s foundation. (2) Cardboard sonotube flooded with water from a drain or supply line leak or the overflow from a blocked condensation collection pan to the a/c unit. (3) Sonotube only partially encased in concrete and exposed directly to the earth due to sloppy and hurried concrete pouring. Concrete is not water proof so water vapor is continually passing through the footings and slab foundation of your home and ultimately into your living and breathing space via your duct work.
Today the sonotube is disintegrating, mildewing, and growing fungus and mold which are aggravating sources of allergens. Many times we find the sonotube unraveling and collapsing to the point of blocking air flow. All of these factors create a very unhealthy situation for your family.
A Duct Armor Restoration can:
Restore underground duct work without busting through your slab foundation
Encapsulate & remediate mold in the air ducts
Repair smoke damage causing a bad smell
Encapsulate damaging rust
Eliminate air leaks in your air ducts
Reduce dust & allergens in your home
Eliminating bad odors coming from your air ducts
Repair animal & termite damage in your ducts
Line damaged and deteriorating cardboard Sonotube
Increase HVAC efficiency potentially saving you money on your heating and cooling bills