Tales from the duct

Another story for the Mr. Fixit files. A few months ago I taped up the leaky duct on the back of our dryer. We knew there was a problem because every time we ran the dryer it blew moist hot air into the bathroom and fogged up the mirror. On inspection the duct had a rip in it, which I sealed with a few rounds of duct tape. Not so fast! The fogging returned and this time I took to the ‘net. According to the guys at HammerZone.com (“Better living through handymanlyness”):

If you’ve ever used duct tape on heating ducts, you know that it doesn’t last long. It does last a bit longer on cool ducts like this, but I only use foil tape on ducting. In fact, there’s some university research web site out there (yes, I should find it and link to it) that points out how poorly duct tape performs and says that duct tape should not be used for ducts.

So why do they call it DUCT TAPE then? They should call it UN-duct tape.

One trip to Lowe’s later, we’re taped up with HVAC foil tape. Crossing fingers…