We're having some work done at our house, and in the course of starting it, we were informed today by the contractor that our heater/AC ducts were in a pretty serious state of disrepair. We've long had issues with the heat or AC not making it to the further points of the house. The home inspection indicated that there was a crushed duct at one point, and we had that repaired, but the flow of air still never quite made it very strongly to the back bedrooms. Now we know why.
When we were told about the issue today, it was stated that some of the ducts were rusted and cracked. I mentally envisioned a few minor cracks here and there in what was otherwise in decent shape. Holy crap, I could not have been more wrong. The section I was able to see is beyond belief.
This does not look like a modest degree of aging and normal wear. This looks like the hull of a 100 year old dingy pulled from the bottom of the ocean. The insulation is tattered away and the brittle flaking rust is barely able to withstand the slightest impact, as seen here. It's incredible that any air ever made it beyond this point in the first place, and this explains the heating and cooling bills we've been dealing with.
I don't supposed we have any legal recourse related to the sale of the house and the condition of these. It wasn't even found or reported to be this bad in the inspection, which I can only assume is due to this being relatively obscured and inaccessible.
We'll be having this fixed, so the costs of the work being done just shot up a couple thousand dollars, but it's obviously not something we can or should delay.
