# What is an upduct system?



## beenthere (Oct 11, 2008)

Never heard of it myself.


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## bobinphx (Nov 25, 2011)

Sounds like you have a two stage evap system. A two stage evap works like a normal evap where water flows over a specially treated paper medium that allows air to flow through it also. This creates evaporation (thus the name evap cooler) and cools the air going into the house. after a period of time running, the water in the reservoir becomes really cold. after all it too has been evaporating. This now cool water is pumped into a set of plastic panels, much like a car radiator. The warm air from outside it pulled over this plastic radiator, prior to entering the wet media. The radiator works like a pre-cooler for the air. They work very very well and can on the right day (temp and humidity) pull the air down 40 degrees from outside temps, where as a single stage can only pull down the air about 30 degrees on the same type day. All of this is dependent on outside temp, humidity and air flow out of your house. These systems can work very well and are much more energy efficient then an air conditioner, if the conditions are correct!! but, come august in Phoenix, no evap cooler is going to keep you cool due to high temps and high humidity. 

Now as to your upducts. Evap coolers work by moving a huge amount of air into and out of your home. Most evap users open a window or two in order to allow air out of the house. My guess is that you have a two stage 3500 to 5500 cfm evap. that much air would require a whole lot of windows to be opened. Some folks dont like the windows open for security reasons. So a company started to make upducts. The are for the most part 12 x 12 barometric dampeners that exhaust the evap air into the attic, after the air has cooled your house. In principal they should work great, but.... most attics cannot handle 3500 to 5500 cfm being pushed into them. Most attics just don’t have the vent area for this to work. 

Additionally, the upducts are spring loaded and create a bit a back pressure on the outgoing air. 

Hope that helps to explain what you have going on. 

Note that Evap cooler maintenance is very very important!!!! If not maintained you could decrease the life of the unit or cause health issues in the home. Also the media will become encrusted with minerals from hard water in less than one season, unless you treat or bleed off water from the reservoir.


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## tylernt (Jul 5, 2012)

bobinphx said:


> Additionally, the upducts are spring loaded and create a bit a back pressure on the outgoing air.


I just assembled some Dial Mfg "Up-Dux" kits. There is a spring on the hinge, but it helps open the damper, not close it. It takes very little effort to open the damper once the helper spring is installed, I can do it just by blowing up through it (maybe I have good lungs  ).

That said, you do need several up-ducts to flow 5,500CFM of air. Some websites I've read say you only need one 12"x12" up-duct per 1,000CFM, but other sources say one up-duct per 500CFM. 11 up-ducts for 5,500CFM seems a bit excessive to me. I haven't installed mine yet, but I'm installing 5 up-ducts for a 5,000CFM cooler. I think 5 will be plenty when the cooler is on 'low', though I may have to throw open a couple windows when I want to run the cooler on 'high'.

Up-ducts are almost a necessity for an evaporative cooler, IMHO. It's such a pain to run around and fool with all the windows in the house all the time. And the best part of an up-duct system is, you can install a thermostat for your evap cooler so it becomes a hands-free, set-and-forget deal just like regular A/C. Well worth the money.

Plus, up-ducts cool your attic, which is where a lot of the heat comes from anyway. Two birds, one stone, and all that.


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## bobinphx (Nov 25, 2011)

just make sure you have enough venting in the attic to allow that air to get out... 

The other down side to upducts is that they are not insulated and not really well sealed when closed. If you have a heater or ac system also, you will get heat loss or cooling loss through the upducts, unless you stuff them with insulation. I have seen people use pillows filled with insulation stuffed up in the upduct for the winter. They do come with a block off plate, but its pretty worthless (thin plastic).


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## tylernt (Jul 5, 2012)

bobinphx said:


> I have seen people use pillows filled with insulation stuffed up in the upduct for the winter. They do come with a block off plate, but its pretty worthless (thin plastic).


Agreed 100%.


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## yuri (Nov 29, 2008)

Why go thru all this trouble. Just close the windows and run a regular AC unit. :yes: You guys must have cheap water if you can afford to evap it. That swamp cooler technology sounds pretty archaic too me. Unless it saves a LOT of elec $$ why bother. Maybe years ago people did not mind the high humidity in the house but now people expect better and with the high efficiency ACs we have I wonder why use the swamp coolers. Tradition??:laughing:


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## Daugela (May 3, 2013)

yuri said:


> Why go thru all this trouble. Just close the windows and run a regular AC unit. :yes: You guys must have cheap water if you can afford to evap it. That swamp cooler technology sounds pretty archaic too me. Unless it saves a LOT of elec $$ why bother. Maybe years ago people did not mind the high humidity in the house but now people expect better and with the high efficiency ACs we have I wonder why use the swamp coolers. Tradition??:laughing:


Summer heat in AZ is naturally hot. To cool a home for 5 months out of the year when the temapature doesn't get below 100 at 2am in the morning is expensive. Yes, in the summer here, there are days it will NOT go below 100 in a 24 hour period. That equates to serious cash. 

The EVAP cooler in the desert has been here a long time and will most likely continue.


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## tylernt (Jul 5, 2012)

yuri said:


> Why go thru all this trouble. Just close the windows and run a regular AC unit. :yes: You guys must have cheap water if you can afford to evap it.


Evap only uses a couple gallons per hour. People put a lot more water on their lawn than through an evap. In milder climates (not so much in Arizona, but in Colorado, California, and Idaho) an evap can also be run in fan-only mode at night (no water) to use naturally cool outside air to pre-cool the home as a buffer against the coming heat of the next day.



> That swamp cooler technology sounds pretty archaic too me. Unless it saves a LOT of elec $$ why bother.


It does save a ton on electric. Evap takes about 1/4 the power to run. Evap also costs less than half the $$$ to install vs. A/C, and evap is DIY-friendly whereas A/C requires a specialist with expensive tools.



> Maybe years ago people did not mind the high humidity in the house but now people expect better and with the high efficiency ACs we have I wonder why use the swamp coolers.:laughing:


Mind? Dry air plays havoc with sinuses and skin, and A/C just makes it drier. I love the gentle humidity a swamp cooler adds to Idaho's desert air so I don't have to use nasal spray and lotion.

I can see arguments against an ugly evap stuck in a window, especially if nobody opens windows on the opposite side of the house to let the humidity back out. But with up-ducts and a thermostat, a swamper is not only cheaper, but also _better _than A/C in my opinion.


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## bobinphx (Nov 25, 2011)

and to add to the list of evap goodness.. 

working in the garage on the car etc is almost nice with a portable evap running. 

I personally like to have the doors and windows open in the summer. Brings the outside in, rather then having a stuffy air conditioned house. 

if done right, evap exhaust air can cool a patio too, just open the door to the patio!!! 

I have a continuious bleed off and I store the water in two 55 gallon tanks. I use the tanks to water the trees and bushes. 

+1 vote for cool moist air in the desert with 10 percent humidity!!!!

+1 for the energy savings. 

downside.... 

maintinance on the cooler!!!!!!!! just changed a belt last night!!!!! sure it was only 5.99 for a new belt, but it was 103 on the roof when I was doing it!!!!!


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## yuri (Nov 29, 2008)

OK now I see the advantages. I have experience with cooling towers/evap condensors with LARGE chillers for AC in hospitals and huge office towers. In your case the evaporative effect will be HUGE as the air is 10% RH and the effect is huge. Go to Florida and watch the poor ACs suffer as the humidity is so high it takes twice the size tower to get the same effect. Just like temp diff is a huge part of AC, humidity diff/evap rate works great for you guys along with all the other benefits like ADDING humidity to your air in the Summer. Total opposite climate to what most of us have or are trying to do. I worked with a lot of dangerous chemicals to treat the tower water (Bromine etc) and have seen the gunk etc with evap cooler and feel sorry for you but it is what it is.:thumbsup:

You don't have any camels down there do you?:laughing:


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## tylernt (Jul 5, 2012)

yuri said:


> I worked with a lot of dangerous chemicals to treat the tower water (Bromine etc) and have seen the gunk etc with evap cooler and feel sorry for you


Do these industrial size towers utilize bleed-off or a periodic partial dump of the water? I can see how junk would grow/collect if not bled or purged from time to time.



> You don't have any camels down there do you?:laughing:


No, but we don't go for a walk without a water bottle...


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## bobinphx (Nov 25, 2011)

Yuri, thanks for being open minded!!! and able to change your opinion!! yea, we dont have humidity in Phoenix until about the end of July. Then 40 to 60 percent. really muggy for us!!! 

I use a blead off to keep the mineral deposits down. really makes the difference so I dont get the scale, but I do get dirt in the trough. have to clean it every season. I went with a stainless steel wet section and its been worth every penny. my media gets changed out every 5 years at a cost of about 80 bucks for the media. 

I also use a second duct system for evap only, so I dont rust out my ac ducts or the package unit itself. Most just piggy back on the ac ducts, which causes back flow into the evaporator of the ac system. Not good, as they then get clogged up and rusted.. you were partly right!!!!


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## tylernt (Jul 5, 2012)

bobinphx said:


> we dont have humidity in Phoenix until about the end of July. Then 40 to 60 percent. really muggy for us!!!


That's the great irony of evap -- it's the most popular in Arizona, where it's almost useless for a month or two every year! A lot of other Western states with no humid/monsoon season are well-suited to evap all summer long, but they just don't seem to have the same popularity, for some reason.


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## yuri (Nov 29, 2008)

Depends on the system and how rich the owner is or how sophisticated the system/bldg. is. We do manual water tests on the really large ones and can slowly bleed off or timer it. There are also chemicals in in to prevent foaming and corroding the shell and tube condenser these chillers have (like a car radiator). They can automate it with a laser scanning the water thru a closed cylinder and automate the water treatment/chemical feed/blow down etc. Puts engineers/operators out of work. There are no more "firemen" operating big old boilers either. All automated now.


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## sammy37 (Dec 9, 2008)

I wont install upducts in a house for the very reason mentioned earlier, usually not enough attic venting for the air to escape.

We had coolers on our houses for years and even had the two stage Mastercool which worked beautiful but I got tired of messing with all the maintenance and on a humid day when the cooler was off, there was too much hot air coming in through the cooler vents, too much cold air escaping through the cooler vents, etc.

I discovered it was just easier to eleminate the cooler, eleminate all the danged vents and infiltration problems, insulate the hell out of the place and install a properly sized a/c unit and wala, we so far have a comfortable cool house and low utility bills.

No more coolers for me!

Like mentioned earlier, that two stage unit requires proper maintenance by the PROPER person. Someone that doesnt understand how the precooler works, can ruin one in a hurry and tell whoever works on it, to never remove the heat exchanger from the cooler, it's extremely fragile and not manufactured anymore. Adobe air went out of business several years ago, once the precooler falls apart, you might as well toss it in the garbage.


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## yuri (Nov 29, 2008)

Probably the most practical solution but how many people want to do all the work of re-insulating etc and the logistics of it and expense. My house is very airtight but in the Great White North we insulate the heck out of them by necessity.:yes:


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## tylernt (Jul 5, 2012)

Evap vs. A/C does seem to be a love/hate thing, doesn't it? 

Me, I hate the insane costs and the hassles involved in bringing in a tech (hope you don't get a hack) to install and repair A/C. I can fix just about anything on my own swamper for $5-$100 in about half an hour with a screwdriver and maybe a crescent wrench. And on my own schedule.


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## sammy37 (Dec 9, 2008)

yuri said:


> Probably the most practical solution but how many people want to do all the work of re-insulating etc and the logistics of it and expense. My house is very airtight but in the Great White North we insulate the heck out of them by necessity.:yes:


I remember over the last few years, everytime I had to shut the cooler off and run the a/c due to humidity, we always had hot air pouring out of the vents. I just wanted to get the house sealed up and that was virtually impossible with a swamp cooler sitting on the roof, so now its gone and my wife is happy.


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## Daugela (May 3, 2013)

sammy37 said:


> I wont install upducts in a house for the very reason mentioned earlier, usually not enough attic venting for the air to escape.
> 
> We had coolers on our houses for years and even had the two stage Mastercool which worked beautiful but I got tired of messing with all the maintenance and on a humid day when the cooler was off, there was too much hot air coming in through the cooler vents, too much cold air escaping through the cooler vents, etc.
> 
> ...


So how do I know if my house has enough vents in the attic??


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## tylernt (Jul 5, 2012)

sammy37 said:


> I remember over the last few years, everytime I had to shut the cooler off and run the a/c due to humidity, we always had hot air pouring out of the vents.


I think your A/C ductwork was leaky. A/C just moves air in a circle, sucking through the return and blowing through the supplies. If your ductwork is well-sealed, the house has a balanced or neutral pressure. But if your supplies are leaking conditioned air into unconditioned spaces (like a crawlspace or attic), the return has to suck the "missing" air from somewhere else, so it sucks it wherever it can get it -- like from your evap system.

I think your hot air coming in through the evap was merely the symptom of an A/C ductwork leakage problem, not the actual disease...


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## sammy37 (Dec 9, 2008)

Daugela said:


> So how do I know if my house has enough vents in the attic??


Turn the cooler on high speed, make sure all the windows and doors are shut and make sure the winter block off plates are removed from all the updux. Now listen to the sound of the cooler as you slowly open the front door, if the cooler gets quieter, then your probably not getting enough air out through the updux.
I know this is a crude way for testing but it is a simple easy way for a homeowner to test.

I dont like updux, they are just another place for hot air to come down from the attic when the cooler isnt on.


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## sammy37 (Dec 9, 2008)

tylernt said:


> I think your A/C ductwork was leaky. A/C just moves air in a circle, sucking through the return and blowing through the supplies. If your ductwork is well-sealed, the house has a balanced or neutral pressure. But if your supplies are leaking conditioned air into unconditioned spaces (like a crawlspace or attic), the return has to suck the "missing" air from somewhere else, so it sucks it wherever it can get it -- like from your evap system.
> 
> I think your hot air coming in through the evap was merely the symptom of an A/C ductwork leakage problem, not the actual disease...


No, I'm talking about hot air coming in through the cooler duct system, it was seperate from the a/c duct system.

Even if you have a barometric damper in the cooler, hot air still creeps down in when the cooler is off and on a windy day, that cooler acts like a big whirlybird and pulls cold air out of the house through whatever duct system is attached to the cooler.

I know I've made a difference getting rid of this cooler and extra duct work, because last year I never could have cooled our large house with a small a/c unit, it would have struggled too much. This year with the house sealed tight, the small a/c is cycling set at 72, 102 degrees outside.


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## tylernt (Jul 5, 2012)

sammy37 said:


> No, I'm talking about hot air coming in through the cooler duct system, it was seperate from the a/c duct system.


Right, that's exactly what I meant. Leaky A/C supplies negatively pressurize the house. That negative pressure has to be equalized somehow -- it'll come in through bathroom fart fans, kitchen range hoods, laundry dryer vents... any penetration in the building envelope with an imperfect seal; including otherwise unrelated evap ductwork.


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## sammy37 (Dec 9, 2008)

tylernt said:


> I think your A/C ductwork was leaky. A/C just moves air in a circle, sucking through the return and blowing through the supplies. If your ductwork is well-sealed, the house has a balanced or neutral pressure. But if your supplies are leaking conditioned air into unconditioned spaces (like a crawlspace or attic), the return has to suck the "missing" air from somewhere else, so it sucks it wherever it can get it -- like from your evap system.
> 
> I think your hot air coming in through the evap was merely the symptom of an A/C ductwork leakage problem, not the actual disease...


As mentioned in my other post, the cooler duct system was seperate but funny you mention air balancing between supply and return. When we first moved into our home 7 years ago, I couldnt run the furnace and fireplace at the same time, smoke would pour back into the living room. I knew we we losing air somewhere in the system, sure enough we had a 12" trunkline in the attic that was never connected from the time the house was built in 1987.


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## tylernt (Jul 5, 2012)

sammy37 said:


> When we first moved into our home 7 years ago, I couldnt run the furnace and fireplace at the same time, smoke would pour back into the living room.


Yep... negative HVAC pressure shows up as symptoms in unrelated systems.


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## bobinphx (Nov 25, 2011)

Daugela said:


> So how do I know if my house has enough vents in the attic??


 
well, you could measure all the openings in the soffits and gables and roof vents and then figure out the max flow for all of them added together and compair that to your max output of the evap, taking into account the number and size of your upducts.Tough, but its the scientific way to do it. .......or..... 

and this is old old school (which is how I was taught and has worked for me for 40 plus years...) close all your doors and windows. check each of the upducts to be sure they are open. then open up your wallet or purse and pull out a 5 spot. not a one and not a ten but a 5 dollar bill (more on why latter). Now open up a window with a screen. open it about 3 or 4 inches. take the 5 spot and put it up against the screen near the top directly in the air flow out the window. if the bill sticks and does not move, your upducts/ attic vents are not moving enough air. Now open the window a little bit more (about an inch) then check the bill, Still stuck in place, do this one inch thing until the bill starts to drop. When the bill drops, you have the proper amount of air flowing out of the house. be advised that you may have to open two windows if the upducts/ attic vents are really not working well together. if the bill drops at the very first test, your upducts are working fine, close the window and relax. 

now as to why a 5 dollar bill... when I normally teach this for friends, I keep the 5 spot !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL....


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## Daugela (May 3, 2013)

bobinphx said:


> well, you could measure all the openings in the soffits and gables and roof vents and then figure out the max flow for all of them added together and compair that to your max output of the evap, taking into account the number and size of your upducts.Tough, but its the scientific way to do it. .......or.....
> 
> and this is old old school (which is how I was taught and has worked for me for 40 plus years...) close all your doors and windows. check each of the upducts to be sure they are open. then open up your wallet or purse and pull out a 5 spot. not a one and not a ten but a 5 dollar bill (more on why latter). Now open up a window with a screen. open it about 3 or 4 inches. take the 5 spot and put it up against the screen near the top directly in the air flow out the window. if the bill sticks and does not move, your upducts/ attic vents are not moving enough air. Now open the window a little bit more (about an inch) then check the bill, Still stuck in place, do this one inch thing until the bill starts to drop. When the bill drops, you have the proper amount of air flowing out of the house. be advised that you may have to open two windows if the upducts/ attic vents are really not working well together. if the bill drops at the very first test, your upducts are working fine, close the window and relax.
> 
> now as to why a 5 dollar bill... when I normally teach this for friends, I keep the 5 spot !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL....


The 5 spot trick huh? Glad it's not called the 10 spot trick.....

Well, I'm eager to try these methods out. Will know soon enough. I already suspect I won't have enough vents. 

So Bob, are you retired HVAC?


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## sammy37 (Dec 9, 2008)

sammy37 said:


> Turn the cooler on high speed, make sure all the windows and doors are shut and make sure the winter block off plates are removed from all the updux. Now listen to the sound of the cooler as you slowly open the front door, if the cooler gets quieter, then your probably not getting enough air out through the updux.
> I know this is a crude way for testing but it is a simple easy way for a homeowner to test.
> 
> I dont like updux, they are just another place for hot air to come down from the attic when the cooler isnt on.


I worded this last post wrong. When you open the front door, if the cooler/airflow gets louder, then you dont have enough airflow.

Bobinphx's method would probably easier for you to use. I've been fooling with coolers since I was 8 and I know by feel and air noise if a cooler is venting properly but the average joe may not recognize it.


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## bobinphx (Nov 25, 2011)

So Bob, are you retired HVAC?[/QUOTE]

Nope.. no real hvac training. My grandfather was an ac man, back in the 1970s. I did pickup a thing or two, but its not profession. I am just an over zelous diy'er... who likes to help people.


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## swfarr (Feb 27, 2015)

*upducts*

If you google "upduct" today, you will find the Easy-Seal upduct.
Unlike the old-fashioned Up-dux, they are easy to install and the diffuser cone spins to open and reversing the action, closes the upduct for the off-season. The barometric damper inside prevents any reverse-flow of air from the attic.
The primary benefit of these upducts. comes from the reduced heat- load caused by a hot attic. Typically your attic is 30 degree's hotter than the outside temperature. This causes up to a 50% reduction in the "R" value of your attics insulation and your entire ceiling becomes a heater radiating more heat into your rooms. With evaporation cooling, you don't have to add an attic fan, just add more vents. 
Installation is all done from under the ceiling, you don't need to go into the attic. Tools required, a stud finder so you avoid ceiling studs and a hole saw to cut the hole in your ceiling, that's all! The Easy Seal UpDuct has four spring loaded cam-locks that activate when you press the upduct unit into the ceiling. No screws are required as it seals to the ceiling from the pressure of the four cam-locks. With a little practice, install can be as fast as seven minutes.
You will want one per average size bedroom with more for larger rooms as each upduct can handle about 500 cfm. To remove heat from the attic as efficient as possible, upduct should be installed as close to outside walls as possible. The galvanized metal duct portion that extends into the attic is over 12" allowing penetration of attic insulation which becomes the insulation for the upduct.


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## swfarr (Feb 27, 2015)

*Upducts WHY?*

If you google "upduct" today, you will find the Easy-Seal upduct.
Unlike the old-fashioned Up-dux, they are easy to install and the diffuser cone spins to open and reversing the action, closes the upduct for the off-season. The barometric damper inside prevents any reverse-flow of air from the attic.
The primary benefit of these upducts. comes from the reduced heat- load caused by a hot attic. Typically your attic is 30 degree's hotter than the outside temperature. This causes up to a 50% reduction in the "R" value of your attics insulation and your entire ceiling becomes a heater radiating more heat into your rooms. With evaporation cooling, you don't have to add an attic fan, just add more vents. 
Installation is all done from under the ceiling, you don't need to go into the attic. Tools required, a stud finder so you avoid ceiling studs and a hole saw to cut the hole in your ceiling, that's all! The Easy Seal UpDuct has four spring loaded cam-locks that activate when you press the upduct unit into the ceiling. No screws are required as it seals to the ceiling from the pressure of the four cam-locks. With a little practice, install can be as fast as seven minutes.
You will want one per average size bedroom with more for larger rooms as each upduct can handle about 500 cfm. To remove heat from the attic as efficient as possible, upduct should be installed as close to outside walls as possible. The galvanized metal duct portion that extends into the attic is over 12" allowing penetration of attic insulation which becomes the insulation for the upduct.


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