Ductwork & Indoor Air Quality in Gilbert, AZ
When one room won't cool or the house is dusty a day after you clean it, the cause is often overhead, in the attic ducts. Outlaw Air repairs and installs ductwork and adds filtration and purification to the system you already have.
Licensed, bonded & insured · ROC 363060 · Open 24/7
What we handle
Ductwork
We repair leaking or crushed ducts and install new ductwork so every room gets its share of air.
Indoor Air Quality
Air filtration and purification added to your existing system to cut the dust and allergens in the house.
Why attic ducts give out here
Most East Valley houses use flex duct: a wire coil wrapped in a plastic liner, insulation and an outer jacket, strung through the attic on straps. That attic spends summer afternoons at 140 degrees or hotter. Years of it turn the jacket brittle, dry out the tape at the joints and let the straps sag.
Then somebody goes up there. A cable installer or a pest tech steps on a run or shoves it aside, and now it's kinked or pulled off its collar. A supply duct that's come loose dumps cooled air into the attic. A return leak does something worse. It pulls hot, dusty attic air straight into the system and sends it to every room.
How to tell if it's the ducts or the AC
A system with leaky ducts can test fine at the unit and still leave the back bedroom five degrees warm. Before you call, walk the house with the AC running and hold a hand at each register. Weak flow at one or two registers points to a problem on those runs. Weak flow everywhere points to the filter, the blower or the coil.
Make sure the return grille isn't blocked by furniture and the filter isn't caked. If you can see into the attic from the hatch with a flashlight, a disconnected duct is usually obvious: a silver tube lying open with cold air pouring out. Don't go walking the attic in summer. Leave that part to us.
Repair, seal or replace
One crushed or disconnected run is a repair. So is a leaking joint at the plenum or a boot that's pulled away from the ceiling. Ducts in decent shape with a few bad connections get reconnected and sealed.
Replacement makes sense when the jacket is flaking apart along whole runs, the inner liner has torn, or the ducts were too small for the system from day one. The best time to handle that is during a system replacement, when everything's open and the new equipment is only as good as the ducts feeding it.
Dust, filters and cleaner air
Between monsoon dust storms, gravel yards and a return leak or two, houses here get dusty. Start with the cheap fix: a filter that fits tight in its slot, with no gap around the edge, changed on schedule. A one-inch pleated filter around MERV 8 catches most household dust without starving the blower.
Past that, there's equipment that mounts at the air handler. A media cabinet holds a filter four or five inches deep, which gives you finer filtration with less restriction. Air purifiers treat what a filter doesn't catch. We install and service both.
One caveat. No filter fixes a return leak. If the system is pulling attic air in behind the filter, the duct gets sealed first.
How a visit works
You call or text
Call or text (520) 858-5914 at any hour. Derick, the owner, is the one who answers.
You hear back the same day
That goes for nights and weekends too. Then we get out to you as soon as possible.
The diagnostic visit
We find the actual cause. It's $85 for a home and $150 for a commercial call, and it's waived when the total repair is over $300.
The fix
We make the repair, and the labor carries a 2-year warranty. A night or weekend visit costs no extra.
Ductwork & Air Quality: questions folks ask
Why is my upstairs so much hotter than downstairs?
Three things stack up. Hot air rises, the upstairs ceiling sits right under the attic, and the upstairs duct runs are usually the longest in the house. With one system serving both floors, the thermostat downstairs is satisfied before the upstairs catches up. Sometimes the fix is in the ducts: a crushed run, a leaking joint or a damper that was never set. It's worth having them checked before you spend on anything bigger.
Does closing vents in rooms I don't use save money?
No. The blower moves about the same amount of air either way. Close vents and the pressure in the ducts goes up, which pushes more air out of every leak. In summer, cutting airflow across the coil can even freeze it. Leave the vents open and let the thermostat do the work.
Can leaky ducts really raise my power bill?
Yes. Cooled air that leaks into the attic is air you paid for and never felt. A return leak costs you twice, because the system has to cool 140-degree attic air in place of 78-degree house air. ENERGY STAR puts the loss in a typical house at 20 to 30 percent of the air moving through the ducts.
Do purifiers that go in the ductwork replace my filter?
No. They do different jobs. The filter traps particles like dust and pollen. A purifier treats what passes through a filter, such as odors and smoke. Neither one makes up for a duct that's leaking, so that's the first thing to rule out.
Our other services
Air Conditioning
AC Repair · AC Installation · AC Tune-Up · Ductless Mini-Splits
Heating
Furnace Repair & Installation · Heat Pumps · Smart Thermostats
24/7 Emergency & Commercial
24/7 Emergency Repair · Light Commercial HVAC
GET A QUOTE
Tell us what's going on and Derick will get back to you the same day. Quotes on new systems are free.
Same-Day Replies
We reply the same day, nights and weekends too.
Straight Pricing
Quotes on new systems are free. Repair visits: $85 diagnostic ($150 commercial), waived when the repair is over $300.