PIPES AND DUCTWORK
The new kid on the block
H
Mick Dalgarno, managing director of Strongduct looks at the history and dispels some of the myths surrounding pre-insulated ductwork.
aving worked in the ductwork industry for the past twenty or so years, I have noticed that not much has changed in this sometimes difficult industry – after all,
most clients think ductwork is ductwork and it’s not that sexy. In the last couple of years however, I have noticed there seems
to be emerging a new generation of people that are thinking inside the box instead of outside the box. These people are taking existing ideas and trying to refine them in order to create an edge they can exploit – some people call this ‘disruptive’ technology. I like to think of it as disruptive innovation, which is generally defined as a process of seeking to improve by disrupting an established market. It involves looking at existing systems, examining them, taking them apart and thinking about how to put them back together to create something different, something better. In this instance, the industry has rested on its laurels and merely accepted an aging methodology of insulating duct externally. We all have legislative and ethical pressures bearing down
on us with respect to global warming, carbon footprints and greenhouse gases while we try to compete in an increasingly difficult market with a multitude of other pressures to juggle such as rising labour costs, rising energy costs, rent rates and increased health and safety. This pressure vessel of demands being put on modern business leads to essentially two routes with some companies competing on price and some on innovation. Competing on price while managing resources is tantamount to a race to the bottom. The innovative route involves creating your own niche market with a hybrid product, where you can deliver to your client and present to the end-user a system which reduces some of the modern pressures placed on the duct markets, such as carbon footprint, energy costs and on-site health and safety. To this end, some companies are literally thinking inside the box by putting the insulation inside the duct and creating an insulated duct in a duct – a better designed hybrid to overcome failings in the traditional insulation which is applied externally. Insulation is often applied in the worst of conditions –
unheated damp dusty site conditions where the duct is often positioned to close to an adjoining pipe, duct, cable tray or part of the building structure, which leads to a situation where the insulation is compromised before it’s even installed. Often, insulation ends up being under-specified as part of a value engineering drive and you end up with poorly installed insulation with a lower thermal conductivity and performance. Compare this with the phenolic foam insulation used in the modern hybrids, which offer higher thermal conductivity for
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example 0.023w/mk as opposed to 0.034w/mk. Because the duct is manufactured from the phenolic foam board there are no gaps in the insulation which helps to improve thermal performance and improved air leakage. This last point doesn’t sound that important, but with the increased duties allowed for in the fan and air handling unit selection to overcome air leakage, it naturally leads to increased costs for the end-user through the life of the equipment. Energy costs are also increased and air leakage is a major, yet controllable, contribution to the climate-related problems being presented to our clients and by default to our industry. The common denominator with regards to pre-insulated
ductwork is that they are all manufactured from an insulation board – and in the past this has been susceptible to a number of problems such as poor workmanship and undeveloped manufacturing processes because in the early days hand tools were used with jack knives cutting the material out from a large flat board.
This was then superseded by CNC cutting machines, which required a fair degree of belief in the product as they are expensive. The materials were flat packed for assembly on site by operatives who didn’t always understand the what the finished product required and this, coupled with the uncontrolled working conditions of dust and humidity, led to situations where on occasion the system failed, engendering bad publicity and mistrust.
It was this negativity that led to hybrid systems finding it difficult to gain traction in the market, leaving it to remain on the fringes of industry and not being fully accepted as ductwork by the ductwork community, and not being fully accepted as insulation by the insulation community. It wasn’t until a number of innovative thinkers realised that with some thought and changes to the basic system a hybrid could be created, This ductwork is manufactured in a clean environment using trained personnel who understand and help develop the products to a very high standard. These hybrid duct systems seek to change the way people think of these products and systems, bringing them to point where they are considered ‘normal’.
Here’s the thing though – that future is already here. This initiative has already allowed pre-insulated ductwork to know its place in the market and it is now understood by installation teams that it no longer sits between trades. It is identifiable in its own right and the installation teams know which applications suit it best. In short, I believe it’s fast becoming a standard to compete with and is setting the new standard for the industry as a whole.
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