Hi everyone. New home owner here and while I was cleaning out my basement a bit I noticed a sag in my flex duct fresh air intake. Bit of background, located in Wisconsin so temperatures have dropped tremendously in the last week or so and there was no evidence of water prior to the temperature drop and it also rained. Running a carrier 9200 furnace with two separate PVC pipes supllplyign combustion air and venting - no issues here. I looked at the intake vent on the exterior of the wall and it is not sealed at all so possible that water is actually leaking inside. Pulled back in the insulation on the inside of the basement wall and noticed that the flext duct insulation was not sealed and I believe this is the issue - insulation is not air tight and allowing condensation to ocur outisee the vent pipe and soaking the vent insulation. The water has no broken through the black wrap around the insulation and is just sitting in one pocket m. I'm thinking this has been a long time issue and went unnoticed by the previous owners as the moisture likely evaporated with an increase in temperature. What can I do to fix this and is it hazardous? The vent insulation must have mold growing inside but likely not affecting the air duct itself. Thanks everyone for your help in advance - much appreciated.
Fresh air intake insulation wet
Maki
21 - 25 of 25 Posts
Absolutely agreed. I think it's more an issue of preventing that from happening. This particular duct is feeding cold outside air to warm inside air so i would think proper insulation should prevent this. I mean when this sort of design was standard, what was the remedy when this would happen?
Don't worry about the codes until you sell the home. Remove the flex then cap the 4" vent head and the 6" collar on the RA duct. You can buy the caps at any big box hardware store. Or you could duct tape them. When you sell, if it's a code issue, it's an easy fix. Like pecmsg said "you'll get plenty of air the old fashion way."
Thank you. I actually looked in Menards and the venting and inuslation is not very expense. Any use to upgrading this to a 6" termination and new vent plus insulation in hopes of this not occuring again? The one part I am not sure is how to properly seal the insulation at the connection to make it air tight. Otherwise I will just cap the wall inset for now and removed and dump the old duct which is surely filled with mold.
You're welcome. I'm glad we were able to help.
21 - 25 of 25 Posts
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